After returning from San Francisco with my toe still intact  I felt I could easily handle this race.  This was the race I really wanted to do anyway since it had a direct correlation to my late father who spent nearly two years fighting colon cancer.  I was hoping to have my aunt with me but some family emergencies kept her from coming up to the city.

The day started off interesting enough though.  I didn’t sign up early enough and I couldn’t make to the packet pickups due to work and traffic.  I had an hour to get from downtown to Perkins Road and on Thursday I couldn’t even do that thanks to constant construction on every other street in southdowns.  Sometimes I really hate Baton Rouge traffic.  So I just signed up Saturday morning.  I knew I didn’t have the cash as I had forgotten to go by the ATM anyway, so I took my checkbook.  Then as I open it up to write a check, I’m reminded that I didn’t replace my checks, so I had no blank checks remaining to use.  Wow, I thought to myself.  That’s what I get for rushing.  But they were able to take credit cards too so I just used it.  It’s a sad time where I don’t carry around $30 anymore.

The race was set up fairly well, lots of booths, snacks, water/juice and a band from Angola.  Wow, we got our own prison band.  They actually were pretty good.  But the whole Dept of Corrections van and cops constantly watching them just felt strange.

The starting line wasn’t very pronounced and they had to remind people several times that runners go in front and walkers in back because it seemed they didn’t order a chip start, and only bibs with numbers less than 800 were getting chip finish times.  So it was a gun time.  It turned out to not be that bad.  I probably crossed the start within 5-10 seconds.  The finish line was orderly however.  It just took a while to get our official finish times although I did notice that I was around 34:04 when I got to the finish.

They had 540 people in the 5K which was pretty impressive for this race.  Way to go everybody!  There were so many teams also that were raising money for various people.  I honestly had no idea you could take the race bib and flip it over and write who you were honoring.  No idea.  I didn’t realize until I started seeing a few while on the course.  I’ve never thought about looking on the back of a bib before.  I guess I will from now on.

The run itself was very comfortable for about the first half.  Then the sun came out for the second half and it got hot, especially hot for me because I was still recovering from a decent sunburn I got in California.  So when the sun came out, I literally began to feel my skin sizzle.  Great, I thought.  I’m at a colon cancer run getting skin cancer now. What are the odds.  Ha!  Actually, I’ve been burnt so bad as a kid, I’ll be surprised if I don’t get melanoma sometime in my life.  Hopefully God continues to watch over me.

So all in all, a very fun race.  The course at Pennington is partially off-road however.  But I’m already getting used to it, except we ran it in reverse from the Dietetics race back in March.

Change of plans again.  Turns out I’m working over Memorial Day weekend out at the sinkhole, so no Mississippi run that weekend.  I’m thinking of making that one up in December with the Pass to Bay run in Pass Christian.  I’m also probably not going to do the run in Fort Worth this weekend while in the DFW Metroplex.  Wouldn’t be fair on the parental units making them get up so early to drive nearly an hour from our hotel to downtown Fort Worth for a 10K race before the festival even starts.  Nevermind it couldn’t be much more convenient and the weather in north Texas for early May couldn’t be more perfect, possible 50s in the morning, mid 70s in the day.  That’s unheard of for Dallas in May.  I’m not sure when I’ll make up the Texas race yet, but there are many good runs around Houston and perhaps I can find another during a cool month.  There is a night beach run in Galveston and on Padre Island, just to keep my options open.  I’m also still eyeing Alabama for sometime this year.  So potentially five states in one year still isn’t bad.  I just don’t know what I’m going to do when everywhere I have left to go is a three hour flight away.  Do I just take off a month and travel around the country?  I wish!

Race: Get Your Rear In Gear

Date: April 27, 2013, 9AM

Place: Pennington Biomedical Center, Baton Rouge, LA

Time: 0:34:04

Charities: Colon Cancer Coalition