And We're Off! 1st Race & Festival for World Peace (part 1)

I'm out of breath and so is the staff. Two weeks ago, we hosted the Sister Cities Leadership meetings in DC and last weekend, the Race. Gladly I can say, both were a rousing success.

Anytime you host a first time event it is - how can one say this politely - a learning experience. The staff "learned" quite a bit about how to navigate the DC city government to get all of the appropriate event permits. We learned how to correctly hold an 8oz cup of water for runners whirling by a water station. We even learned that there are such people as grouchy balloon artists. But most importantly - we had a lot of fun getting to our finish line, which was Race Day.
The festival stage set-up started at the pre-dawn hour of 3am. The Pennsylvania Avenue transformation started. By 7am, the staff had the registration and information tents ready and sponsor banners were lightly flapping in the breeze.
As 9am approached the police appeared en masse, the roads closed, and the course marshalls were in place. With over 500 runners/walkers registered from 17 states and DC, folks hurried to find their place for the start. At this moment, all the open-ended questions I had thought about for nine months ran through my head: would the runners like the course, will people show up for the festival, are the first festival performers here, do we have enough port-a-johns, will the rain hold-off to name a few. As I stood about 50 yards down from the Start Line, it was definitely a thrill to have the participants rush by as the event got underway.
I should note that despite the 90% chance of rain forecast the evening before, we happily enjoyed overcast skies and 65 degree temperatures for the whole event (with the exception of a brief 5-minute shower at the start of the festival.)

Just 15 minutes later, it was all over - sort of. At least for the quickest male athlete, Demesse Tefera was the first winner of the Race for World Peace with a time of 15:10. The top female runner appeared shortly thereafter. Hirut Mandefro took the top female prize with a time of 17:04. Supporting family members and friends created a human channel of cheers and applause that stretched from the Finish Line about 100 yards out.
Over the next hour we encouraged, hooted, and prodded our participants on to the Finish Line. (Official timings.) On to the awards ceremony and the festival!

Many thanks to our major sponsors of the event: Collective Media, The Hill, and BP, as well as all of in-kind donors,

(Stay tuned to this space for a series of perspectives on the race, our festival, and the four virtual races that happened in the U.S. abroad.)