Over! Done! Accomplished!
The Saturday before you read this the 5K run/walk with thousands of people was completed. A member of our group that’s been training together suggested a carpool to the event. So four of us rode together, exchanged greetings with a few more wearing the same shirt during the wait before the official start, and started after the serious runners in the front rows.
We had tall, short, young, old, serious, and casual participants. Middle school students involved in a “Read, Write, & Run” program moved along with adults of varying decades and ambitious parents pushing babies in strollers.
Our route wound through a portion of the largest park in St. Louis. We passed familiar structures, signs to the zoo and various museums, and one group in ARMY T-shirts doing exercises. We climbed up slopes and then descended, turned corners and stayed on the correct road thanks to portable barriers, park rangers, and volunteers.
Welcome sights: a cup of water at the mid-point. The colorful markers at each mile. The assurance when looking back – around a corner or walking backward for a few yards – that I was neither first nor last.
Goal accomplished! Today is good weather. Think I’ll go for a walk of less than 5K.
