MLB All Star 5k

So for anyone living under a rock, this week in Queens, NY, at Citifield, the home of the NY Mets, it was All Star week. To kick off baseball's midsummer classic, NYRR and the MLB hosted the All Star 5k, in Prospect Park. The best thing about this race was that 100% of the money paid for registration, was donated to the Sandy Relief foundation! 

This was also the second race that my boyfriend was doing with me, and his parents are in town visiting, so they came along for the race as well. My boyfriend and his dad are huge baseball fan's and a few retired players were to be in attendance, so they were excited. 

The day was humid, and overcast, but it wasn't really hot at all. Before the race started, a young 11 year old girl sang the National Anthem, and she was clearly nervous, and messed up a few times. And since runners are so awesome, we all helped her out and sang the song with her, it was a really beautiful moment, gave me goosebumps!

Once the race started, I was ready to finish! The humidity in NY in July, always sucks! And on Saturday it was not being friendly! I started out at my usual pace, around 10:30, and soon I was feeling exhausted. I needed to take a few breaks, grab some water to drink, and pour on my head!  But I finished in 33:34, with a decent pace of 10:50 per mile, I was proud of that for sure!

After the race, there were awards, and raffles to be given out. The awards were presented by the former players in attendance. Just so happened that John Franco, former NY Mets pitcher was there, and he is my father in law's favorite player! We were right near the stage and my boyfriend got his attention and asked for a picture, and he was nice enough to say yes! We were all so happy, and elated that he took a picture with us, it was such a awesome moment for all of us. Then Tony La Russa, former manager for the St. Louis Cardinals was there too, and he took a picture with pops, and signed our bibs! We felt like the cool kids in class! 

We didn't win any of the raffle prizes, but we were happy enough to have gotten pictures with Franco and La Russa. But then out of nowhere, John Franco comes back on stage, and leaned over to my father in law, and took the hat off his head and gave it to him! He told him, " Now your on my team, Team Franco, you'll always be my teammate!" OMG, we were so shocked, happy, excited, and everything in between! It was the best experience we've had at a race. And for my boyfriend it was his proudest moment with his dad. It was touching, and we felt so blessed and lucky to have been there. Thank you John Franco!