April 10: The day before Go! St. Louis

This weekend, our friend Derek drove up from Tulsa to join us in the Go! St Louis half-marathon. He arrived late Friday night, so I didn’t get to see much of him that night. I had to go to bed early since I was a start-line monitor for the Read, Right, and Run Marathon in Forest Park on Saturday morning.

The Read, Right, and Run Marathon seeks to “develop reading proficient, physically fit and community minded children by challenging them to READ 26 books, RIGHT the community with 26 good deeds, and RUN 26.2 miles over a six-month period.” (www.gostlouis.org/rrrm.html) The Read, Right, and Run Marathon is an exciting event for kids—they were bustling with energy on Saturday morning, eager to race their last 1.2 miles. As a start-line monitor, I was one of eight volunteers charged with the duty of staggering their starts—we didn’t want all of the kids starting at the same time. With hundreds of young students participating, that could have been a HUGE mess. We stressed to the children that this was a run, not a race--that everyone who completed their 26 books, 26 deeds, and their 26.2 miles gets a medal. Even so, most of the kids sprinted as fast as their little legs would carry them. On kid lost his shoe about 40 meters from the start line, picked it up, and kept running—carrying his shoe the whole way! With the growing rate of childhood obesity, it was wonderful to see the kids so excited about physical fitness.

After I walked back home from the park, Derek, Steven, and I went to the Go! St. Louis expo to pick up our race packets, our shirts, and our commemorative duffel bags. This was my husband’s first 1/2 marathon, and his first expo experience. I think he enjoyed the free samples from various food companies (LaraBars, Cascadian Farms, etc.), and it was handy being able to pick up several packages of Shot Bloks for the race. I love the energy of the expos and had a lot of fun exploring the different booths and vendors. I was really pumped about my free Cardinals ticket voucher that I received for dropping off an old pair of running shoes at the Goodwill booth. After spending about 30 minutes at the expo, we left to run errands and go home—taking it pretty easy since the race was the next day.