Earlier this summer, my youngest grandson asked me to run the Speak Up 5km in Richmond with him. He got me an entry with his school.
The Cameron K. Gallagher Foundation hosts the run. Early in 2014, Cameron, a high school student, was struggling with self-destructive issues and was helped with the assistance of mental health professionals. She wanted to raise awareness of teen mental health and organized a race in her subdivision for fall 2014. While running a half-marathon in the spring of 2014, she passed away at the finish line from an undetected heart issue. The foundation was formed, and this year was the 11th running.
The event is an untimed fun run in Byrd Park, usually with about 3,000 participants. This year, it looked like around 1,000 people showed up. It was later in the fall than usual, with a cool, cloudy, almost rainy day.
I left my house by 6:30 am and arrived at the parking lot at 7:55 am, picking the spot closest to the race course. There were a couple of port-a-potties in this lot. I walked over to the finish and took a picture to send to Owen and Sandra as a meeting point. Then I walked some on the dirt track, with a couple of 30-pace runs mixed in.
The weather was 65 degrees, with overcast skies and a 63-degree dew point.
I wore shorts over compression shorts, a short-sleeve shirt, and my Saucony Triumph 24 shoes. My hands felt cold, so I wore gloves.
At 8:50, they were wrangling us toward the start. Owen and Sandra still had not made it to me. They showed up with time for a few photos and a walk to the start line to listen to the race announcements.
I planned to stay with Owen as long as he wanted, running 30 paces every three minutes. A fast time wasn’t an issue, so we stayed at the back, with fewer than 20 people behind us.
The run started five minutes late. In the first mile, slow walkers were spread across the entire road. During our run breaks, we worked our way around the groups.
My Garmin showed the first mile was mostly downhill, dropping 80 feet. My first mile was 15:33.
In this first mile, they had a silly string zone. Residents near Byrd Park complained about silly string littering their neighborhood. The organizers tried a workaround: laying down tarps to make cleanup easier. After the zone, a lot of silly string still covered the roads.
After the first mile, the course entered Maymont with a few ups and downs. By then, Owen was tired of my slow pace and walk breaks and ran to the finish. The path narrowed, and at my pace, many people combined walking in their progress. Coming out of Maymont, I ran my second mile in 13:54.
Out of Maymont, the third mile involved climbing back up the 80 feet we had descended in the first mile.
The quote alley was around mile 2.5. Once through, the course followed a crushed-stone path with eight switchbacks. At the end of the gravel path, a grass funnel led to the finish. My third mile was 14:09, and I finished in 44:55, 10 minutes slower than 2024. I used my Garmin time as the finish had no display clocks. My Garmin registered 3.13 miles.
I got a bottle of water and a piece of pizza and headed backward on the course with Owen. We hooked up with my daughter in the switchbacks and walked with her to the finish, taking her finish picture.
We hung out a little, then went to a diner in Carytown for lunch.