23. Run Forrest Run, 2008

First of all, I seem to be guilty of not reading my own articles. I knew that I would see some of my former co-workers at this race because Coburg Dairy is one of the sponsors. Upon arrival I found Robert Garret at the Coburg table, and one of his first questions was why I didn’t call him up for a free registration. He had four that no one even tried to claim.

I was immediately reminded of how dense I can be when I get too busy. I completely forgot about the free registrations. I paid thirty bucks to be in this race, and I could have just picked up the phone. Ouch. Well, it was good to see a some of the old gang, anyway.

Bubba Gump

The Run Forrest Run follows the same basic as the Resolution Run, starting at Joe Riley Stadium and looping around (and through) the Citadel. It owes it’s movie-reference name to the fact that it’s primary sponsor is a movie-reference restaurant: The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. They have Forrest Gump artifacts and memorabilia all over the place, and they even play the non-stop (on mute, thank God) through all of their opening hours. (They have lots of locations, so I suppose they have the licensing squared-away.)

How it All Went

It was a nice race. Pretty standard for the area, really. Mike from The Extra Mile started us off, and we were pleasantly surprised to see a slightly different course from last year.

Below you can get a look at Robert and I. Robert runs four to five miles every single morning, although he claims that he doesn’t go very fast. It’s a ritual for him… he must run every single morning or… well, maybe he loses his superpowers or something. I have no idea. Anyway, he had run several miles on the morning before the race, just like last year. I was fresh, and he started out a little tired. I stuck with him for about a mile, but after some small talk he encouraged me to press onward… again, just like last year.

When you run slow on the first mile before speeding up to your normal pace, you’re going to spend the rest of the race passing people. Looking back, I’m glad it worked out that way. As I finished up… oh, maybe it was the second mile… I notice someone very small running with us. It was this little kid who was actually keeping up with the general population. He was mega-cool.

Really, think about that. How long are his legs compared to ours? This was more like a 10K for him. I saw him wipe out pretty hard, but he was already up by the time I got to him. He didn’t cry or make a fuss. He just picked up the pace a bit to make up the lost time.

How awesome is that? Somebody please tell this kid’s parents to buy him a large bag of his favorite artery-clogging snacks. Wait… on second thought, just give him an apple and tell him how cool he is. We don’t want to mess up his training.

Speaking of his parents, I was wondering where they were until I saw his shirt. He had his elementary school’s name on it. As I passed him I noticed some of his classmates ahead of us. As I passed them, I began to wonder if he was only behind them because their legs were longer.

After the race I saw the coach rounding up the kids. There were maybe ten or twelve of them. It was pretty cool, but I can’t remember the name of the school. Sorry about that, guys. I would name it for you if I could. Anyway, the Little Trooper is in two of the pics in my Flickr set. Enjoy.

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