Running of the Squirrels

As a sporadic runner I enjoy getting my monthly copy of Runner’s World and checking out all of the world-class races in exotic locations such as New York, Chicago, London, etc. I usually spend a couple of minutes trying to convince myself to get into enough shape to complete the race and start to think about how cool a particular race may be to run in, but thoughts of entering usually pass pretty quickly as I move on to other things. Well, after scanning the May issue there was one race listed that could not be passed up. It was none other than the “Running of the Squirrels.”
This race was to be held in Marionville, MO and I couldn’t believe a race hosted in a town of 500 (with two of those residents being my Grandparents) would be listed in Runner’s World. So I quickly tried to encourage all of my family members to take part and to chase after the infamous “White Squirrel Medal” -- which is only handed out to the top three finishers in each age category. It is much better to suffer through something together than to go at it alone and it seems like my family is always willing to jump right in and try new things and so the challenge was made. And they did not disappoint. I am proud to say our family members represented 16 out of the 150 or so participants. Some of us ran, some walked, and some did a combination of both, but we all survived, got a t-shirt out of it, and most importantly we had a great time doing the event together.

Austin and Ethan enjoyed the Saturday morning stroll.