Be the One Run 5K Race Report

Ok the race reports I admit are a little late.  I had my mother and sister-in law come to visit this week for my daughter's opera (yes she's in kindergarten and is doing opera), plus I was busy every night this week with Team in Training and Master's Swim..whew!  I am looking forward to the 3 day weekend! (Clearly I am doing this at the end of the holiday.... :-)

Ok, so this past Saturday (5-21-11) was the Be The One 5K Run (www.betheonerun.org)at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.  I work at the National Marrow Donor Program which is a non-profit that basically helps patients that are in need on a bone marrow/stem cell transplant get one.  Specifically we operate a National Bone Marrow Registry comprised of awesome people willing to donate their marrow to save someones life who is dying from cancer, or a lot of other really bad diseases.  It's a great place to work, and I use my scientific knowledge to find the best possible donors for patients and advise transplant physicians.  Sounds boring cool, huh? Anyways, so the Be The Match Foundation is a part of our company that is charged with engaging the public and raising money to aid our efforts in saving lives (through research, patient assistance, and adding more donors to the registry).  The Be The One Run was to help raise money for the Foundation, and boy did we!  My little team that could (all 15 of us) raised over $6,500 with yours truly as the Team Captain (my coworkers knew of my past and current fundraising exp with Team in Training)! 
Wow, that was a long explanation....ok to the race itself:

Pre-Race:  Rain......Rain....Rain...more Rain. (debate if I should even get out of the car)....Sigh and dash down to the bandshell and I am soaked within 15 secs...Damn....2 of my coworkers saw me and shouted, so I ran over with them and huddled against the wind and water.  I'll be honest I wasn't too excited but then something amazing happened.....wait, what no liquid falling from the sky? IT STOPPED RAINING! 10 MIN BEFORE THE RACE STARTED!  Ok, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. :-)

Here are some pics of my coworkers:

Notice how everyone looks damp, but better than the rain that was happening 5 minutes before.  We all went and lined up and got ready to run. (I need to get a camera I can take photos with when I run, any suggestions?)

The Race:  I took off to fast (again, fast for me is 9:00 pace, I'm a 10:30-11:00 per mile guy which is slow) after the first mile my watch said 9:13...whoops!  My legs, especially my damn right calf didn't like that pace, as it was knotted up protesting about it.  I had to stop and stretch it and then resumed running with the endless stream of runners (there were over 1,600) and dodge puddles. To the 10 year old running with his Dad, thank you for jumping in the puddle next to me and soaking me up to my thighs with cold water...but he was having fun so I gave him a pass and didn't grumble like the old fart I am.  I met up with 2 of my coworkers who were also running, and I ran with them the rest of the way.  It was their first 5K ever, so it was nice to run with them and shout encouragement and keep them moving.  We had to stop at one point, the whole road was flooded through, and we had to get up on the curb and walk about 40 feet to get past it.  My coworker, Beth, was running with her 2 boys in a double stroller, and upon seeing the almost pond, did she stop and try to go across to the path?  No, she plowed through the water, that stroller was like a boat, water spraying everywhere (she is hard core! After the race she informed me that the water was over her ankles!).  Jen, Kelly, and I continued on, they were doing ok, but my calf was hurting.  I picked it up right at the end and sprinted to the finish line and finished strong; I saw 32:51 on the clock, not bad I thought (boy was I wrong!).  Jen and Kelly were about 30 seconds behind me, and I watched them finish. 

Kelly and Jen right after the finish!

Post-Race:  Some of my coworkers and I gathered and took a group photo:

All done with the 5K! 

It was a good race, but I checked my official time and it was 34:12....so apparently either I was hallucinating when I saw the clock, or something screwy happened....I wasn't looking to PR, just have fun.  I'll take it, and lesson next time is to start my watch next time to make sure what time I finish in (the Foundation had some issues with their stuffing race bags, so did mine get switched with someone elses? Who knows?) 

After the group photo I had to leave and I went to Apple Valley and met up with the Team.  They were running form Highland Park Elementary down Pilot Knob for their 12 miles.  I ran and caught people and then turned around and ran back with them to the starting point.  I did that about 6 times, and it wasn't too bad except for 2 things:  1. it was a big ass hill I kept running down and back up to where the cars were parked, so I did about 6 hill repeats.  2.  It started to rain, but not just rain, it poured for the last mile when I ran with the Bob and Bianca.  I pretty much was swimming, I was soaked.  However, after we were done, we had an awesome brunch thanks to Coach Val at her house.
My wife made her homemade cinnamon rolls and honey pecan caramel rolls and brought them over for the whole Team to share (they loved them!)  It was a good day, despite the wet weather.

And of course on Sunday (5-22-11) was my first indoor triathlon...that post is coming soon!  I have been working on 3 at once this week!  Plus with the long Memorial Day weekend, I have been having to much fun with the family to blog!  Tomorrow you will get one more post on the indoor and an updated Race schedule for me! Here's a clue:  I am going commando....really!