Epiphany's 1st Annual Pumpkin Dash

Wow! What an experience it is to plan a race. So many things to take care of that you don't think about until you start planning. Something was always coming up.

It all started when I brought up the idea last spring to a couple of people at school. I started looking into things over the summer, but had been so busy with softball/baseball season, that I let it go for the time being.

Then after having coffee with my running group late summer, we started talking about it again. And from that day forward, it was a go!

My friend, Amanda Sanders, brought up the awesome idea of having the race close to Halloween and people could dress up in costume if they chose to. It would be something different than the other races.

We only had a couple of months to really plan this thing so we decided to make it low budget and more of a community event for our school and church. We also decided to hold it out at the junior high XC course because it was available, free and the trees would look great for the time of year we were holding our race.

With the late planning, we couldn't get the Lake Run Club to do the timing because of all their other commitments, but we were able to secure a time clock so people could see their time as they strolled across the finish line. We awarded the top male and top female finishers. We also awarded best adult costume and best kids costume.

Below is what was given as awards (trophies) along with a gift card that was donated by one of our sponsors! An Epiphany parent did an amazing job decorating the pumpkins for us!

We had a few sponsors who helped provide food/drink, rewards for prize winners and goodie bags for the kids run. They are so great for helping out and keeping our race costs to almost nothing (except the shirts). Thank you to The Rock Restaurant, Potbelly Sandwich Shop and Dr. Brett Keller from Central Illinois Orthopedic Surgery!

It turned out to be a great little event. Monsignor Powell even showed up in his Moses costume to "part the Red Sea" at the start for our runners :)

Epiphany Catholic's principal, Mike Lootens, also showed up to run with everyone. We had such great support from our administration and the families that had come to enjoy our fun run/kids run with us!

Sean and I are already thinking of some great ideas to make next year's event even better. It'll be nice that there aren't so many unknowns since I've been through the planning process once now.

Thanks to everyone who helped plan the race and to the the ones who donated their time or talents to help get things ready to make this event a successful one. I just love my church and school community!!!