Last year I recieved an e-mail about an exciting new race in the Baltimore area, it’s first ten miler. Unfortunately at the time it was less than a month from the event and I knew I wouldn’t be able to train in time, so I resolved not to run the race. This year it was a different story when I saw that the registration was going to open and I heard that my friends were running it I jumped at the oppurtunity.

This race doesn’t provide a medal, but has won the Runner’s World Best Swag award. This year’s finisher’s premium did not disappoint. We recieved a Feel the Power hooded jacket.

The weather forecasters warned that if the storms didn’t hit Friday night then they would arrive Saturday morning. I hosted the carb load meal at my house and the weather was gorgeous all night and into the early morning hours. We met Dad at his condo and he drove us to the race. We arrived and met up with the BWI Loopers and several DisneyRunning.com runners. We started walking toward the start line and a light sprinkle started. We lined up and were ready to go. As the gun went off and we started the rain got stronger. Not even 10 feet past the start line we heard the first clap of thunder and the skies opened up.

After we all passed over the start line the Baltimore City Police Commissioner started. His goal was to pass as many of us as possible. As he ran police cadets ran with him and put stickers on our backs featuring the little man from the Get out of Jail Free Monopoly card. For each one of us that he passed $2 was donated to the Police Foundation Fund. At the finish line we were able to purchase shirts that feature the Get out of Jail Free guy and said “I was caught by the commish”. I was excited that they were doing something special for those of that were slow, so I was looking forward to getting my sticker.

He caught me within about a mile of the start. I saw cadet after cadet pass me and none of them were giving me a sticker. I saw a group of cadets coming back towards me and I called out to them that I never got a sticker. One of them replied “well we can’t have that now can we?” He came over and I got my sticker. The new goal – make it to the finish line in the pouring rain with my sticker still attached.

I spent several miles leap frogging with my friend Jen who practices the Galloway method. We wound through Druid Hill Park, passed through my alma mater John Hopkins (only my 3rd time on campus btw), and then headed towards Lake Montebello. As we approached Lake Montebello I spotted Kerrywithak from DisneyRunning.com and cheered him on. A few more times leap frogging with Jen and I decided as we were entering the loop around the lake that I was just going to run her intervals with her.

We made our way out of the Lake and I was doing really good running her intervals with her. We decided to work on walking up hill and running downhill since we still had 4 miles left to go and it was tough. The rain was coming down hardest yet and any hope of keeping the shoes dry were lost. We started squishing as I made my way back into Johns Hopkins. There were some great downhills as we headed back through Druid Hill park. We started hearing the music in the distance and knew we were almost there so we ran for it. My father was actually inside the finish line when I got there. We made our way over so I could get some water and a slice of watermelon. We walked the long way around and traversed a muddy field to get our jackets. I almost wiped out by caught myself before landing in the mud.

I took my jacket over to purchase my “Caught by the commish” t-shirt and was excited to see that my sticker was still on my back. After purchasing my shirt I found out that the commish was pulled from the course for dehydration, but he made it to mile 9 and passed 2000 runners before he was pulled.

The race support between the volunteers and police cadets. The watermelon at the finish line was refreshing and the jacket was awesome. We followed up the race with pancakes at the house of a Looper. They were so good and really hit the spot.

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