Fort4Fitness participants from Anchor Community Church.

Pam and I, with our medals for completing the race.

The 2012 Fort4Fitness races were held September 29, 2012. Last year, Pam and I did the 4-mile walk (which she also did in 2010). This year we upgraded to the 10K walk (6.2 miles). We’d walked this distance several times before during the summer. I think our best time was around 18 minutes per mile. But on The Big Day, we managed 17:32 per mile. Total time: 1:48:39.

Lots of people from Anchor participated.

Our race was last, at 9 am. But we were there at 6 am to get a good parking place, and to cheer on the Anchorites who were doing the 4-mile walk at 7:30. Pastor Tim Hallman did the 13-mile (half-marathon) run at 8:30.

It was a fun morning. The Fort4Fitness people do a great job with the race. Along the route are gobs of people cheering you on–“Good job!” “You can do it!” About a mile into the walk we passed a large group of blacks singing a song with an African flavor–they were GREAT! Huntington University manned one of the refreshment stations along the route, giving out Gatorade and water.

It was especially fun walking through some of the neighborhoods. In some, the residents really got into it, scrawling encouraging words in chalk into the street and cheering us from their porches.

It’s an incredible event for the city. In just five years, it has grown from 3000 people to 10,000 people. They make it fun, with all kinds of things happening along the route. And at the end–all kinds of goodies await.

Yep, definitely–we’ll be back next year.