Race Report - Crime Stoppers 5K Fun Run

Last Friday I experienced what was easily one of the highlights of my life. I laced up my running shoes and ran the slowest 5k race of my life. Slowest by nearly 15 minutes and it was fantastic! I ran the 8th annual Roseville Crime Stoppers 5K along with some 250 others, including my friend Melinda,
running her first 5K. But in this race there were also 2 elite athletes that I ran with that made it such a highlight. I ran with 10-year-old Alexa Overbay and 8-year-old McKinley Overbay. This was their first of what I hope to be
many races, and they were amazing!

There is a little bit of back story here. I have 4 kids and they are all incredible. Alexa plays the piano like none other. She is an amazing swimmer, she can dance, and she plays tennis. McKinley is good at whatever she does. She too plays the piano, she can sing, dance, and swim. Sydney, 6-year-old, is an incredible artist, quite a little comedian, and she is a great gymnast. Jake, at 4, is already as tall as Syd; he plays basketball and t-ball. Jake takes after me. But the girls, well, I have been selfishly hoping that one of them would take up one of the sports that I grew up playing but they haven't. I'm easily the worst swimmer, piano player, artist, singer and dancer in the family. But I run. The kids have been to Daddy's races. They crewed me during my first 50 miler and they have been there at the end of many of my marathon and ultra marathon races and generally seem to enjoy the experience.

I've taken them running on occasion, but I don't expect much. Don't get me wrong, they have been quite impressive covering a couple of miles at a time. But still, I have always assumed that my opportunity to run races with them was waaaaay in the future, maybe high school, and even then I figured they wouldn't want to by then.

So with the 4th of July approaching I did a quick search for a local 5 or 10k. I've been doing a fair amount of speed training the last couple of months so I thought it would be fun to wake up early and blast out a fast race. I found the Roseville 5K and it was billed also as a kid’s fun run. I
threw it out to the kids and they were in! We set a loose training program, the kids were excited. I wasn't quite sure if they were more excited about getting a race t-shirt or the race itself, but if I'm being honest I'm never quite sure which one I'm usually more excited about?

As the day approached I had my doubts about how much they could actually run. Wendy took them on their last training run two days before the race and McKinley had a bit of an off day walking the better part of two miles. Alexa had a good run (as did Sydney, who actually kept up for the most part with Alexa). Wendy came back from the run and said, “I don’t know how this is going to turn out?” I told myself I’d be happy to walk the entire course with them.

That all changed, of course, the morning of the race. We arrived at Royer Park and I immediately started to change into race mode. It was all I could do not to ask Wendy to take the kids last minute while I raced the front runners. Based on last year’s times I knew I could possibly win this race…but it wasn’t about me, this race was about the kids and they were so cute telling me that they were getting butterflies.

With just a couple of minutes before the race we made it to the start along with my friend Melinda. The kids were excited. Before we knew it we were off! We were toward the end of the pack so we had to start slow. Once the crowd thinned out we were actually running at around a 10 min/mile pace, much faster than the kids needed to go. As we rounded the first corner, about .3 into the race we hit a slight uphill and the girls found a more reasonable 12 min/mile pace.

We ran and chatted, pointing out other runners (a lady pushing a jogging stroller, kids happily playing their Nintendo DS’s completely oblivious to the fact that they were in a race. There was a water station a little over half a mile in. It was fun to watch the kids hit their first aid station. We thanked the volunteers for coming out and headed down downtown Roseville pointing out the various shops and people.

We took a little walk break during the water stop, but Alexa was quick to say, “Can we start running again?” Steve Prefontaine watch out! We ran at a nice even pace to the half way turn around where Melinda caught us. We did a bit of a speed walk up a hill and then took off running again. This time we wouldn’t stop until the end.

I have to say that I expected to be walking most of the race. I got up early and put in my own 9 miler that morning and I can say that when we hit the 2 mile mark I was starting to sweat! By the time we had a half a mile to go we were really in a groove and at one point during the last .3 miles I glanced down at my Garmin 305 GPS watch to see that we were holding just over a 9 minute mile! You can watch the video here, it tells the story of the last .3 miles. The girls were amazing, they were sprinting! I kept muttering over the last mile that I just didn’t want the race to end.

When the finish line was clearly in view Alexa and McKinley took off sprinting to the finish. Alexa took 2nd in her age group, McKinley took 3rd. Both of them no doubt with long running careers ahead. For me, well, now I get the whole parent angle and how much fun this can be. Next stop, do we already know where the Olympics will be in 2016?