Yesterday Janie and some others organized our town's first ever PrideFEST. The event started with a 5k "walk, run, or roll" race on one end of the Lawrence Shopping Center, and culminated in bands and tents with local organizations in the parking lot on the other end of the strip mall.
The organizers poured their hearts into the event, unfortunately despite the forecast calling for overcast skies, it poured. It rained during the set up time, and again after we left. After getting soaked the day before at the Pennington No Kings Protest, I was grateful to not get rained on.
Despite lots of publicity, the race was sparsely attended. I suspect the rain kept some people away. As far as races go, it was a very low tech, low stress, event. In the the lot where the former Huffman-Koos furniture store stood, we gathered in a giant circle and were led in stretches prior to the race. Then we lined up and the runners sent off at 8:25 am -- five minutes before the announced start time. Two giant "roosters" tried to join us in the run, but decided to stay back and became the official medal hand outers at the finish line. The walkers started a few minutes later.
The thirty or so runners ran single file on an uneven sidewalk for the first tenth of a mile while we waited for the policeman to stop traffic so we could cross Texas Avenue and run up and down Allen Lane.
The organizers kindly had two water stations (one used twice), and cute rainbow heart signs indicating how far we were on the course. The course measured about 2.8 miles (instead of 3.1), but as there were no bib numbers, and certainly no timing chips, it truly does not matter.
I ran my usual 3 minutes run: 1 minute walk pace, but at the halfway point stopped that and powerwalked to the end with Don. The time was too slow to admit to even to the few people who will see this.
I was following a mom with a couple of children until she spotted her family, took pictures of them, and decided "this is a nice turn around point." The next closest person looked very far away. I chatted with a 79-year old man dressed in grey who was out for his regular run. He lives just off the course and had no idea we were running that day. I guess word didn't get out as well as I thought it did. I saw posters throughout town and on Facebook.
We were surprised with medals at the finish line. The t-shirt does strategically does not have a date on it -- by ordering in bulk with money they collected this year, they can use the extras in future years. When we do the race next year, we'll wear the shirt this year as most participants did this year. I passed though fearing bad race mojo if I did. Guess it worked since I found 11 cents on the course.
We saw Angela setting up her hula hoops next to the stage where School of Rock was trying to set up for their set. The rain delayed them. Safety first, as always.
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