Last Saturday, on May 9, 2009, I participated in the Race for the Cure. This is a 5k race that they hold every year to help raise money for breast cancer. For those of you who do not know a 5k is a little over 3 miles long. They hold the race down by the Gateway Mail. I goes from the north end of the mail up 3rd west to the gas station and then back down 4th west to the mail.
I had not heard of this race until my cousin Brett told me that she was walking in it with her family and asked me to join. They were walking in it because her boss's wife had breast cancer and she was also in her ward. So there Young Woman's group was walking in it as well. It was sort of last minute, but i signed up right before the deadline anyway. And i am glad i did.
On race day i rode the train and trax down to the mail. I figured that this would be the best option considering how many people go and how many people would have to park downtown which is a mess anyway. It was really fun to tide the train and trax because all of the other people on them were also going to the race. Once down there i meet up with Brett and her family for the race. They got there right as it was starting so we just went up and started walking. It was amazing to see how many people were there. We could look in front of us and see people going on for ever and we could look behind us and see the same thing. It was amazing to think that all of these people were gathered together to support one cause. In a world that is full of hate and wars and so many people fighting against others it was nice to see people working together for a change.
Throughout the race we kept talking and laughing just like we always do. The original plan was just to do half of the 5k because we were not sure how far the Young Woman would want to go or how far Amy would want to go because she is pregnant. As we were going though we got seperated from the group. When we came to the point were you could cut through we were having so much fun that we decided to just keep going and do the whole thing. By the end of the race we were all really glad that we did the whole thing. By the time we got back to the Gateway it had taken us over an hour to walk it all.
When you get to the end you walk through the mail and they have booths set up were they hand out all of this stuff. We got our free banana, orange, and water. There were also booths from all of the supporter's. Our favorite one was the Great Harvest one that was giving out free slices of bread. One other thing that we all really enjoyed throughout the race was people's team name's. For the race you could sign up as a team and make your own name and t-shirts. Some of our favorite team names were The 3 B's support double "D's, Lab Rat's Forever, and Let's do the Race for Second Base.
All in all it was a great day and we all had a great time. It was a lot of fun to walk in it and to see that many people together for the same reason. We were all there to support the same cause and to help out another in the process. It felt great to be a part of something so big that was doing something for hope and for the good. We learned later that there was a total of 18,000 people that walked that day. 18,000 people that were joined together for one cause. 18,000 people who came out to help another. We all had such a good time that we have all already decided that we are going to join in again next year.
