Conferences and 5K run/walk

I am not a runner for a variety of reasons. Turns out the problems I had growing up in gym class were more a factor of asthma than being overweight. The pounding on knees is also not my thing. I swim. I walk. I like the elliptical at the gym. Sometimes I even ride bikes or horses.

Last year though I decided to check into a conference "fun run" for charity. I asked about the time table to see if walking the fun run was an option. I had been regularly walking 5K in just under an hour. I was told "sure".

Of course, all the publicity for that year was still listed as "run". I could not talk any of my colleagues into walking with me. On race day, I did find a handful of others who did slow jog and some walking but I was still the last one to finish... in about 55 minutes. I felt wiped. It was hard to breath. But I did it. Three months later I learned that I have a dairy allergy which aggravates my asthma.

This year at the same conference, the activity was listed as a "Fun Run/Walk". I think it drew a bigger crowd. And it definitely raised a good bit of money for a really good cause - e-NABLE.

The coordinators attempted to break out the competitive runners from those that wanted a more leisurely pace. Most went out on the run. About a dozen of us headed off on a walk around the park. This time I did successfully drag a friend and also found a coworker in the group. We finished in about 50 minutes and I was still breathing. It was wonderful.

Those 5K events were 6am runs. In July, I ventured into the OSCON 5K Glow run. A much different experience. First off, It was the evening that I arrived at the conference after a coast-to-coast, two segment plane trip. So my body thought I was trying a 5K at midnight after a long travel day. More to the point of a great event though...

The "wave" ratios were Topsy-turvey from the 6am events. Only a few competitive runners with mostly leisure jogging and a lot just walking. I suspect the 90 minutes of free food and beer leading up to the 9pm start time has a bit of an impact. Turned out to be short of a 5K but that is fine [I heard last year it was well over]. The music (DJ) at the start/finish was way too loud. The cereal van (food truck) was much fun though and with plenty of dairy free and gluten free options. The taco truck also looked good but I never ventured close enough to find out if any of the options could be made gluten free and dairy free. I know they all had cheese in the description but they might have been able to leave that off. The music choices were mixed - some good, lots I did not recognize.

At LinuxCon I did a lot of walking back and forth between the venue and the Whole Foods Market. The 5K run was a morning run again but it was also listed as max of 45 minutes to complete. I slept in. I did go for a long walk (longer than my WF ventures, shorter than a 5K) once I did get up. I also have plans to try the "Data Dash" at Strata late September but that is also an early run a tight schedule.

-SML