The Hope Runs Here Breast Cancer Run is another worthy cause that benefits from a 5K Run. Here on Long Island, we have among the highest breast cancer rates in the US, so this is a cause that really hits home.
For an inaugural race, they had a lot of participants with 419 finishers. I think that was because this was a particularly well-publicized event with some really nice raffle prizes donated by the shops in the mall. The start and finish were just outside the Westfield Sunrise Mall.
Considering it was an inaugural race, it went off with barely a hitch from my perspective. There was a brief moment of confusion as to which direction we were starting in, but that was quickly resolved when Terry Bisogno, calling yet another Long Island race, made his way to the start and got everyone lined up the right way.
I maybe it had been the heat, but I didn’t feel I was running that well in the weeks leading up to this race, so my confidence was pretty low. I just figured I’d do my best and see what happens. I ended up running my best 5K with a 22:11 time (7:09 pace), full results here. This began changing my perspective on racing. I’d been going into these races seriously pumped up and probably pushing too hard, I ran this feeling very relaxed and posted my best time. This is something that was helpful in later races.
Overall this race was on par with the other events I did this year and they probably had the nicest raffle prizes of any of them. I know I say this about every race, but I would definitely do this again. Maybe I’m just really good at picking races.
