5K for My Birthday

Saturday was my birthday. It's no big deal if you forgot, because I probably forgot yours. But here's the nice thing about our birthdays: my birthday is a two-week warning for Brookie's birthday. So no excuses there.

Brookie always sees to it that my birthdays are special occasions. I was thinking back on some highlights from the past few, and came up with this short list.

27 - My first birthday in the Kansas City area. At the time, we were living in an apartment in Overland Park. I was sick on my birthday and still trying to figure out how sick-time worked when I couldn't stay home, because I was already home. Brookie had just started her job at Blue Valley Middle School, and she surprised me that afternoon by having a pre-paid pizza delivered to our apartment for my lunch.

28 - By my next birthday we had become really good friends with the Baumans and they came to dinner with us at Waldo Pizza to celebrate. It was really fun to have John, Julie, and their kids there with us. I love Waldo Pizza, but the highlight of this birthday was after dinner we went back to their house to hang out, and Julie whipped out my birthday cake, which was inside a pizza box and was decorated to look just like a pizza—easily one of the top three birthday cakes I've ever had.

29 - One thing I remember about this birthday was going to The Dish in Liberty, MO for the closest thing to actual Chicago deep dish pizza outside of the Windy City.

30 - Thirty. That's enough of a highlight. But Brookie took things to another level when we started celebrating my birthday a month early. The 30 Days of Todd were awesome. And I especially loved the letters and lists of 30 things about Todd that friends and family wrote and sent to Brookie. I had also told her that I wanted to celebrate with friends again this year. The Baumans had moved back to Arizona, but by this time we had made lots of new friends in Missouri and pretty much all of them came to dinner with us at RC's on Saturday, and then came to our house Sunday night for cake and ice cream, and then some came bowling with us on Labor Day too.

Which brings us to this year. One of my gifts from Brookie was the registration fee for the Royals Charities 5K on the morning of my birthday. It is such a cool race, and the best part is that the race ends on the field at Kauffman Stadium. This was my second 5K. The first was about six years ago when I ran in the BYU Homecoming 5K, when I promptly puked after crossing the finish line.

For this race, I was pretty sure that I was in better shape than I was six years ago—but I was still a little worried about puking. Brookie asked that I please not puke on the field, and I happily obliged. The race started at the right field gate. There were some volunteers on the edge of the mass of people lined up for the race that were holding up numbers: 5, 6, 7, 8, etc. I decided that they must indicate mile times, so I put myself between 7 and 8.

The race began and I was trotting behind the crowd. Before too long some space was opening up and I was able to start getting into my stride, which was probably more 7-minute mile than 8. I was passing people and then, just after rounding Arrowhead Stadium, I strained my calf. Not cool. My calf will usually hurt after running for a while, but not usually until the end. I thought we were maybe a mile in, so the sharp pain in my calf came really early. Turns out it was really early, because after a few minutes of hobbling along (skipping?) and being passed by all of those people I had just passed, I came upon the 1 mile marker. Dang.

Most people running were doing so at a very even 4/4 rhythm. I was running in triplet—more of a jazz beat to my stride, which I had to cut back considerably. It hurt, but I couldn't stop because I had been looking forward to standing on the field all week. I kept skipping along and I noticed that I slowly began catching up with everyone I passed and then been passed by. Because I had to slow myself down, I was never really winded. Towards the end I started to get tired, but then realized that we were nearing the stadium again and the race was nearly over.


When I got to the stadium, volunteers told us to run down the tunnel that led on to the field through the Royals' bullpen in right field. As I neared the opening to the bullpen I'd be lying if I denied that the words, "Now pitching for the Kansas City Royals..." didn't cross my mind... at least twice. Despite the pain in my leg and my crippled stride, I was grinning ear to ear as I ran on the warning track along the outfield fence to the finish line. I was pretty much in heaven. Then, I saw Brookie and Savannah near the finish line in the stands waving, and I was sure I was in heaven.



My final time was 24:40, which I was extremely pleased with considering I ran most of the race with a bum leg. Also, not a single child passed me during the race. Six years ago I remember being very winded in the second half of the race and seeing a bunch of skinny junior high kids pass me. This time, I was the one doing the passing as we neared the end. And, perhaps best of all, no barfing this time. But, knowing that I wasn't at 100%, I was a little disappointed because I probably could have been around 22 minutes at least. There's always next year I guess.

Later that night we went to the Royals game (our second one of the week). All participants in the 5K received tickets and could buy extra tickets for friends and family, so we took advantage of that. The race was great. The game was awesome. One of my favorite players even hit a homerun for me on my birthday.


Oh, but I forgot one thing. You may have noticed a distinct pizza pattern in my birthdays. Brookie and Savannah took me out to Waldo Pizza on Friday night. The tradition continues.


Go to the board!