Dirtbag Fitness: Looney Lagoon 5mi Fun Run Race Report

Ready to race

The Looney Lagoon 5mi is a special race. There were a ton of first going on Easter morning. The group that put on the event, Stamina Race Event Management, had never done an event before. First! We, Super Awesome Wife and I, convinced my dad and Bev to do the race because they were on the island, and I don't think either of them have ever done something like this before. First! I decided to walk it with them instead of run it, which I never do. First! And the biggest, most important first, it was Dirtbag Baby's first race! We popped him in the stroller and went out on the course.
The Looney Lagoon was as low-key an event as I've ever done. Maybe the lowest key event I've ever done. When the plan is to walk it with people who don't walk regularly you don't set goals. You just go out there and do it. The race organizers, to emphasize the Fun element, decided that instead of doing age group awards they were only giving an award to the person who came in first, the person who came in dead in the middle, and the person who finished dead last, which they called the Stamina Award. You're out there longer than anyone else, therefor you have the most stamina.
Dad and Bev picked us up in the morning, little boy was being fine. He's pretty good in the morning, no fusses even that early. He slept in the car on the way in and got a good feeding in before the race started. We chilled out at the start, no hurry no pressure, no warm-up. Why warm up? We're walking. The Grey was doing the race too so we met him. He was going to run it though. Have fun.
I initially got Dad and Bev to sign up with us because I read 5k instead of 5mi. Who has a 5mi race? What a strange distance. Whoops. Oh well, what's two more miles?
We positioned ourselves in the back of the group so as not to be in the way of people who cared and waited for the start. There's the air horn and off we go...kind of. How intense were we at the start? Here, dig this photo.

We're talking Hands In the Pocket Intensity here!

Yeah, pretty much. We were out for a nice stroll on a nice day. That's it. We immediately fell to the back of the pack. Never been here before. Oh well, I'm not going to run. I'm going to enjoy a walk with family. Which is exactly what we did. We passed two people somehow in the first mile and they never caught up to us. One of them was wearing a knee brace and I found out later the other was recovering from a catastrophic back injury. We were, I think, the only other walkers. Everyone else ran most of the course.

It was a simple out and back so everyone passed us on their way to the finish line. The guys in the lead went by before we hit a mile and a half. Crazy fast. We strolled along. Watching everyone go by is an interesting perspective on races like this. You get to see the faces, the determination. It was like being divorced from the actual event. We were barely a part of it we were so far behind. But we had numbers and we were chugging along.
Dirtbag Baby was great the whole time. He barely fussed. He just sat and watched all the crazy people sweat by him. There were other strollers, but they were being run with. Someday, buddy, someday Daddy will take you on a race and run. That'll be fun.
It was funny to be almost The People the course guy was waiting for to clean up. Just us and the two behind us. Hi, how ya doing? Oh, we're at 47 minutes at the turn around? We don't care, thanks though.
The weather was great and it was a fun walk. There isn't much else to say about it. It didn't hurt, we didn't race. At the end as a fun thing the race organizers had put out Easter eggs for people to pick up. Super Awesome Wife picked one up with a prize ticket in it. Yay, basket of cookies!And The Grey ran back to walk the last mile with us after he finished. That was nice of him.
In all a fun time. I hope Stamina Races puts on more things, I liked how they did it. For their first event it went surprisingly well. Glad we all did it together. I'm so very looking forward to doing more and more events with the tiny human. We'll make it something he does, so that hopefully as he gets older being fit continues to be something that happens. It'll be a habit from before he knew we were training him.
Many thanks to my sponsor Background Profiles for helping me do fun events like this. Getting to share them with the family makes them even better.