My racing experience dates back to the days of $5 entry fees and as an incentive for runners to sign-up organizers offered runners a free T-Shirt! Well, the shirts are mostly still here and thankfully they are a much-improved product too. In recent years some races recognize that many runners have drawers full of T-shirts and the shirts are no longer the incentive they initially were during the early years. Fast forward to current time and see some organizers offering a different incentive to runners. They offer runners to not receive the shirt and in turn pay a lower entry fee!
So come race morning I wake early and find that the last thing I really wanted to do was run a race, let alone a faster pace 5K race. It’s not unusual for me to have “race entry remorse” on race day anymore.
I am going to go way out on a limb here and assume that you, like most runners, are not a world class runner and therefore will never come close to challenging a world, Olympic, national, regional, or similar record. In the world of running, runners instead celebrate their personal records or PRs. It does not matter how fast one ran a race, what matters is how fast the runner ran for a specific distance relative to that runner’s past performances. Since most runners compete in races of various distances, most runners will accumulate their own best finish time for each distance. Thus, the title PR for that distance.
This post is why the 14th Brooksie was important to me. This year’s race was more than about returning to the event after last year’s virtual race.
Typically you will hear people say they need to start running to lose weight. Well, leave it to this architect to think differently. I knew I needed to lose weight in order to run!
A bit of background here. My friends and running buds know that I have been running in some form or another for more than 50+ years, and over the years my weight as gone up and down, so why now? Well, the short version is that I had several non-running injuries and two different surgeries during the past four years. This along with the lack of any motivation to race is how I gained unwanted pounds. Just when I was starting to recover from most recent surgery along came Covid and the end of racing.
The Finish
DONE! A Crim success story! There are many things about the finish that make Crim special. Years ago it was their well organized chute system, then came chips, they were one of the first major races (if not the first?) in the country to use the chip. Their finish line technology continues to innovate each year.
You are greeted by a crew of volunteers offering you your finish medal and the awesome cold wet towel you get to use! While many like the beer and pizza afterwards, my favorites are the Popsicles (purple are the best) and cold towels! And it’s not over! You will greet your friends and be greeted by friends. You may even have the opportunity to congratulate another runner whom you battled throughout the race.
Next it’s time to head to the festival area. This is where you can get in the line to receive your choice of beer or soda and pizza in the festival lot. Soon the air will fill with caloric stuffed odors from the festival tent while runners meet family, friends, and reminisce about the race. Shortly thereafter while even more runners join the festivities the band begins to play and the whole place is a celebration.
This year my family will join me and my running friends from our Running Fit 501 training group will continue the celebration at the Team party. This is where you and eat as much as you like and share your celebration with your running buds from 501. This is about the time that I start planning next year’s race too! Thank you for reading this I hope it helps you through the tough, challenging, and fun Crim course.
Author’s notes:
I was working downtown Flint in 1977, the year of the first Crim but was not aware of the race. It was not until 1984 that I ran my first Crim. For me Crim is a very personal annual event. In some ways it’s a homecoming. This is where my running career began back in the spring of 1965 as a “fast runner” on my junior-hi track team in Grand Blanc. I also ran cross country and track for GBHS in the late 60’s. Our team of distance runners was well recognized as among the best in all of Michigan! In more recent years the tradition of excellent runners from GBHS continues with the likes of USA Olympian in the 800m Geena (Gall) Lara and Grant Fisher who became only the 7th high school runner ever to run a sub 4 minute mile, and two time Footlocker National Cross Country Champion and has since become a NCAA Champion racing for Stanford.
In the early days of Crim, the start of the race was on the Campus of Mott Community College. From that start area in 1984 I remember standing and looking towards the upper floors of St. Joe’s Hospital and the window of the intensive care unit where I was with my father during the last hours of his life just a year prior and asking him to look over me during the race. In more recent years the Crim has become an opportunity for me to connect with many of my old school pals. I have been told that my old school mates look for my results each year too. I now have new motivation.
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