Who You Gonna Call? Duskbusters!

Wednesday night was the big (okay, fairly tiny) 5K race through Golden Gate Park to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis research, and it was fun! My final tally raised was $465, with huge thanks to David Grover, Dennis Grover, Barbara Avery, Moira Moody, Liz and Vicky Gomez, Lauren Hawkins, Mary and Gary Rice, Melissa Gossett, and Wiebke Wiechell. You guys are awesome and I was thinking of you along the way.

This was definitely the most personal road race I've run before, hitting close to home because I lost my mother to MS, but it was also one of the most fun. My team, Come on Myelin, organized by my stellar friend, Courtney, were the perfect team: jovial, friendly, and completely independent of each other (my only question when signing up was "I don't have to run with other people do I?"). We cheered each other on before and after, but during, everyone went at the pace that worked for them. (We also came in second for total fundraised at $3,345!)

At the very end of the race there is a giant uphill climb, and then another several hundred feet to run, and meanwhile you can see the race clock quickly ticking time off as you run toward it, huffing and puffing from the hill. I'm still waiting for them to post the stats to see my final time; I know I didn't beat my personal record, but I think I came close-ish (meanwhile, a woman running with a small dog and a ten-year-old boy both beat me by quite a stretch: way to make me feel like a winner, guys.). Perhaps the real triumph was simply how much I was looking forward to running on Wednesday night. After taking a couple days off beforehand, I couldn't wait to run off the extra energy, and I was definitely pumped up by the fact I had so many great and generous supporters. We were a small group overall (maybe 150 runners?), but that made it special, and even kind of community-like.

I still don't necessarily love running, but having been doing it consistently for over a month now, I feel less intimidated by it. And since I live next to one of the best parks in the world, there's no excuse not to keep it up.

Note my fancy DuskBuster wristband!

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