Running of the Bulls 5K: not farther, not faster, but fun!

A short blog to report on this fun event in Palo Alto, last Sunday. I don't have much time as I jumped on a plane to Frankfurt and Paris the next day and will be on the road in Europe for 10 days, then Florida for 4 days. Just enough time in between to get back home and celebrate our wedding anniversary (18 years, not even a special symbol for it, but always a nice time and memory).


I can actually be short as my blog master and guru, Scott, joined the crowd and already shared his account of the fun. For sure, with this race name, all the eyes were on the cows and bulls. But Scott couldn't resist to steal some of this hype with a provocative costume, a matador!

As usual, and as opposed to Scott, I didn't race with the camera, and the family couldn't come this weekend, so the photographic coverage is pretty limited on my end. Here are two of the fastest (and cutest!) cows on Earth, during our warm-up, :


That's it for the pictures. Again, see Scott's blog for more.


On the starting line I met Kris Paaso and Amanda Trotter, wearing a Brooks top. I told them that I was part of the Brooks ID (Inspire Daily) program. My favorite show brand, Brooks, sponsors their club, the Peninsula Distance Club. They seemed to be of the "cow level" (aka Olympians) and indeed ran respectively 17:45 and 18:11, taking 1st of their age group. I also met Jeanne, from my company, to whom I mentioned the race on Friday. Two, not yet enough to form a corporate team!

Quick start and the result was pretty much set after the first two turns. I tried to follow Matthew Tompkins whom I know from the annual Big Bunny Fun Run 5K of Cupertino, just before Easter. Kept Matt in sight all the way, and saw him passing Alan Liu just before the finish, for 3rd overall. I fisnished in 16:47, 31 seconds more than two years ago (I also ran the 2004 edition but it was 8K then). Fast enough to win the Masters' division, but not fast enough for a PR or to see the first two youngsters finish (see the overall results).

Like Scott said, it feels weird to be done after a quarter of an hour of running, when you are used to run for 3, 6 or 20 hours and many miles. I actually hanged up for a while after the finish, for an hypothetical award ceremony. I feel bad for the race directors when people don't wait for such ceremonies but, this time, there wasn't any. It was fun though to see the kid races, one for each year from 2 to 12!

After the finish I also met Elliott Wright whom I passed in the first mile as he had to stop to tight his show lace. We discussed and exchanged emails as he is interested in joining the mid Peninsula ultra training group. Elliott works for a great cause, the Semperviruns Fund, acting at preserving the redwoods of California's Santa Cruz Mountains. So appreciated and cherished by us, ultra runners of the Peninsula.

With that, what about the injury (shin splints)? Again, I didn't run at all the week before, just biked 100 miles over the week. No pain on race day so I went for 4.5 miles on Monday, an easy run during which I could feel the inflammation coming back again. Bottom line, nothing more this week before the big race on Sunday (20K of Paris, 20K for 20 kilometers and 20,000 runners, quite another setting!).

More news from Paris next week and, in the meantime, au revoir!

PS: shh, that's the cow bell, a very unique and cool finisher's "medal!"