I got down to the Patriot’s Day 5 Miler today, which is Veteran’s Day.

I’m glad that I got there early; they put me on parking duty and I got to warn people to park higher and higher up the Eastern Prom as the parking lots filled up. Between the race and a boat launch, they filled pretty fast. Once I was basically in the road, there was only 5 minutes left to the start of the race and the few people still coming in were there for the boat launch and most tried running me over rather than listening to what I had to say so I let them head down and not find a place to park.

The race had great weather. It was 44° out and quite sunny. There was a chilly breeze, but the runners did not seem to mind it as much as us folk that were just standing around. The start began over by the East End Beach, and the finish was about 8/10 of a mile away near Marginal Way. The trail looks like it is finally getting repaired and is in much better shape than the last time I was over in that area.

I had a front row seat (well, standing position) at the finish line, and got to hit the plunger as each runner crossed the line to mark their time. The general consensus was that the course was a little short, with Ethan Hemphill powering into a sub-25 first place finish. Christine Reaser won the women’s race.

There was a great turn out today; there were around 130 runners for a noon start in mid-November.

(Results)