Race: ‘Race to end Domestic Violence’ and ‘Phoenix 10K’
It’s really nice when my business and our running (err ahh..) habit can come together. It’s particularly nice when it does so in support of a great cause. Such is the case with the ‘Race To End Domestic Violence‘ a 5K running event sponsored by the Arizona Foundation for Women here in Phoenix. It’s a great organization and one Kimberly and I are honored to support. There are a lot of options out there for your help, but when you see some of the stories that this group is here to put an end to, you know it’s worthy. A couple of staggering statistics…. Every 36 minutes in Arizona, a police officer responds to a domestic violence incident where a child is present. Every 30 minutes in Arizona, a family is turned away from a shelter due to lack of space. Every 19 minutes in Arizona, an arrest is made as a result of domestic violence incident. There is a domestic violence related death approximately every five days in Arizona!
My business industry is one of the largest contributors to the cause and always puts together a sizable team to run (or walk) in the race. This year in order to have an even bigger turnout, the race was ran in conjunction with the 34th annual Phoenix 10K (one of the oldest and largest races in Arizona). In fact, they set it up so that you could run one race right after the other - which of course me and Kimberly were one of the 150 out of 2500 runners who did both!
The race is held downtown and ran basically on the same roads as the Komen and every other downtown Phoenix race (flat and fast). That meant a fairly early rise and drive. It was a nippy day and we had to park a ways from the start at the Bolin Plaza so the cold was a good motivator to get the running started. Kimberly and I had a little different strategy for the races. Seeing 5K and 10K’s are fast and normally all out type runs, and this being the first time we ever tried back-to-back, deciding how fast to run them was tricky. Kimberly decided to run the first race (the 10K) more or less all out (as much as you can as your body knows you have another fast 5K coming) and chill on the 5K somewhat. My plan was to try to run both equal, kind of like I was running a 15K race speed.
We both did very good, Kimberly got a PR in the 10K at 51:10 and followed up with a 26:25 in her 5K (both top 10% in her age group). I did 44:38 in the 10K and 21:36 for the 5K which was good for top 10% overall in both runs. We were happy with the results considering most people just ran one race, in fact in the combined overall I finished 22nd and Kimberly was 56th place.
We spent the rest of the day walking around the mall and seeing what we could find for the grandkiddo and those other little ones in the land where the wind comes whipping down the plains. Next week we are off to the beautiful California Central Coast and Monterrey Peninsula for the Big Sur Half Marathon!