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After work, I headed out to Washington Park to run the Scream Scram 5k, arriving ten minutes before the 6pm start of the race. This gave me just enough time to register myself and get my three year old daughter in the 100 Meter Spooky Sneak, which was before the race. After the 100 meter dash, I quickly hussled my daugther into her Halloween Costume and put her in the stroller. This was going to be my first race with a stroller, expectations were high! I’m rather competetive and I knew that if I didn’t have a stroller that I would have trouble not racing, which I didn’t want to do since I had just completed the Denver Marathon.

I wasn’t quite sure what the etiquette was when racing a 5k with a stroller, but I assumed that you started in the back of the pack. I didn’t have enough time to make my way to the back of the pack, so I stood off to the side of the start line and waited. The gun went off and I waited for about 15 seconds before merging into the race with my stroller. The first quarter mile was really slow, I couldn’t get around anyone and it’s impossible to weave yourself in and out of a crowd with a running stroller.

After a half of a mile, I got into a groove and started passing people, until… my daughters witch hat flew off her head, so I had to stop, turn around, run back to the hat, put it on her head tightly and remind her to hold onto her hat. There were a good number of runners in costumes, so while running we had a conversation involving costumes, et al.

I started getting into a groove and a comfortable pace, but still not going that hard where I couldn’t hold a conversation. It was funny because several times I would ask my daugther how she was doing and some runner next to me would turn around and respond “doing good!” I aslo got a few comments from other runners such as “you’re making me feel really slow” and “great, a guy pushing a stroller is going to beat me!”

With a half mile to go, I could see Paulie Bleaker from Juno up ahead, so I threw in a surge. Actually, Paulie Bleaker must be the hot Halloween Costume this year, because I had already passed two other Bleakers and one pregnant Juno. I came across the finish line with a 21:52 5k, 7:03 pace, so not too shabby.

Also, congrats to JM for taking third place, his Hulkster costume was pretty slick. Hulkamania definitley ran wild last night!

If you ran this race and would like to review it, please stop by the Colorado Running Forum.