Corporate 5K

Today we ran another 5K race. The Corporate 5K was held at the Melbourne airport. I signed up for this race in late 2019. It was scheduled for mid-April 2020, but was cancelled due to COVID-19, but our purchase carried over to 2021. The 2021 race was also scheduled for mid-April, but this time, the race was delayed until today. Unfortunately for us, it was scheduled 5 days after the Gateway To Space 5K, which we ran on Saturday. This was a little too soon for me to want to run another 5K.

Given its name, you can imagine that there was a corporate theme to the race. Over 100 teams from various companies in Brevard County participated. The Northrop Grumman team had 175 participants. Of all those co-workers, I only saw two that I knew.

Susan dropped me off at 4:45 PM, then went back home to pick up Andrew. At 5:30, the NG team got together for a group photo. Soon afterwards, Susan and Andrew arrived at the parking lot, which was about a mile from the race festivities. I walked halfway to them, then walked back with them.

The gate opened at 6:05 and we were allowed onto airport property. We lined up at the 15 minute/mile sign post. I couldn’t believe how many people were in the line up. The race started at 6:15.

The three of us slowly jogged together for about 3 minutes, at which point my calves started screaming at me. Andrew and Susan continued to somewhere beyond the one mile marker before starting to walk. I occasionally ran and eventually caught up to Susan. Andrew stayed ahead of us and ended up finishing about 2 minutes sooner. It was pretty cool, running about 2500 feet on the mid-size runway - 27R.

Afterwards, we collected our swag – a medal and a T-shirt – and walked back to the car. Susan wanted to celebrate, so we went to Rita’s and got some frozen custard and Italian Ice. I'm tired and just want to relax for the rest of the night.