Pictures are Posted

I have posted the pictures I took during the race Saturday, on the Run for Kids website.  Here is a link to the pictures.  2012 Run for Kids Pictures.  I hoped to take a lot more, but!  Also, Suman Silwal has put together a very good video from the race.  It is on his website mruns.com. Thank you Silwal for an outstanding job on the video and for sharing it with us.


I think these results are now correct.  Here is a link to the results page on the Run for Kids Challenge website.  PFD Results

I want to thank all our sponsoring restaurants that provided the gift certificates we raffled off Saturday.  If you live in Birmingham, please go by these establishments and thank them for their generous contribution to the race.  You might have dinner while you are there.  They are all really good and some of Marye Jo and my favorites.


Cantina Tortilla Grill,  Bistro V,  Carrabba's Italian Grill,  Brio Tuscan Grill, Edgar's Bakery,  Brava Rotisserie Grill,  Crazy Cajuns Boiling Pot & Nabeel's Cafe and Market.  


I listed Nabeel's last for two reasons.  First, Nabeel's not only donated two $50 gift certificates, the certificates came in a Nabeel's Cooler containing a bottle of Nabeel's Famous Salad Dressing and a Nabeel's T-Shirt. Second, Anthony Krontiras, Owner of Nabeel's, ran the 12 Hour Run. He was #33, wearing the fluorescent Green Gnome shirt.  Thank you so much Anthony and great job.  By the way, Nabeel's is located in Homewood, right across from Homewood Park.

And please don't forget Paul Champion.  He was the man passing out all that wonderful Sorbets and Ices from the truck beside the pavilion.  He also kept a team running in the 50K.  His store is located behind The Olive Branch in Cahaba Heights, on Cahaba Heights Rd. and across the street from the Vestavia Police and Fire Department.


Sometime in the afternoon Melissa Allphin, the representative from Camp SAM, did the honors and drew 5 winning names in the raffle.  Here are the results.
1.  Stan Mackin, Birmingham:  Nabeel's & Brio
2.  Dan Ripple, Birmingham:  Brio & Nabeel's
3.  Linda Scavarda, Toney, AL:  Bistro V & The Cantina
4.  Mohammad Givi, Birmingham:  Carrabba's, Brava & Crazy Cajuns
5.  Neal Gerhart, Montevallo, AL:  Edgar's, Carrabba's and Brava


Thanks to all of you for making the 2012 Run for Kids such a huge success.  We are already planning next years race.  We are determined to make it even better.  And, I promise to bring the run numbers to the race next year.  The date will be May 4, 2013 at  Oak Mountain State Park.  Go ahead and put it on your calendar right now.


David
 .

Preliminary Results are Ready

What an incredible day with amazing performances from everyone.
Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for making this years run such a success.  It will be a while before I have time to determine how much we made for Camp Smile-A-Mile but as soon as I know, I will let you know.

The "preliminary" results are posted on Ultrasignup.com.  (Top Right corner of the page) There  are still several errors with the posted results and quite a few, mostly late registering runners are not in the results at all.  Check the "Splits" and "Results."  In some cases they are different.  Please let me know if your results are not correct.  I am aware of most of the problems but there may be some I do not know about.  Mark, at Ultrasignup is doing his best to get everything straightened out, hopefully, today.

I have been asked about the person taking all the pictures Saturday.  Here is a link to his website mruns.com.
As soon as possible I will add my pictures to the Run for Kids website.  I have about 200.

Run for Kids Final Information

We are now three days and two hours to race start for the 12 Hour and 50K.
We will have package pickup and late registration Friday afternoon at Oak Mountain State Park from 4:00 PM until 6:30.  There is no mandatory meeting and runners may pick up their packets Saturday morning if they prefer.  The only purpose in the Friday pickup is that we have a lot of out of town runners that might want to get oriented and take a look at the course.  We also hope some of the later registering runners will come out Friday instead of waiting until Saturday morning.

Here is a review of some critical information.
1.  The 50K and 12 Hour Races start at 7:00 AM sharp
2.  The Festival Run (1 to 6 hour run or more) starts at 8:00AM
3.  The entry fee to Oak Mountain State Park is $3.00 per person.  Please bring exact change.  There is an ATM at the gate.
4.  Runners arriving for the 7:00 AM start must go to the South Gate of Oak Mountain State Park.  (Close to Interstate 65) The north gate opens at 7:00AM and if you go to it Saturday, you will miss the start.
5.  The start/finish is at the Cedar Pavilion located at the far south end of Double Oak Lake. Here is a map of the park Oak Mtn. State Park.  and to the Cedar Pavilion. Click on the block in the lower left to see a detailed map of the location of the Cedar pavilion.
6.  We will have Package Pickup and Late Registration Friday afternoon, 4:00 until 6:30 PM.
7.  Race day package pickup and Late Registration will open at 6:00 AM at the Cedar Pavilion.
8.  Drop Bags and Coolers are welcome.  You may leave them at the Cedar pavilion or in you car. If you are parked in the large parking lot shown on the map your car is only about 50 yards off the course.
9.  The run course passes within 20 feet of three park bathrooms.  Please use them.  Don't just step off the trail.  The Lake Trail is a very popular biking and hiking trail and we don't want to offend anyone, especially the park personnel.  Park superintendent, Michael Jeffreys,has been extremely helpful and we want to keep him on our side.
10.  At one point I had said we might have an unmanned water station on the far side of the lake.  We are NOT.
There are several drinking fountain along the course, the last, right in from of the canoe rental office just before heading into the woods.
11. While there is water around the front side of the lake, runners must carry water with them on the course. You will not be able to drink enough at aid stations to avoid getting dehydrated if you are running multiple laps.  5K Runners.  THERE IS NO WATER ON THE COURSE.  Carry a water bottle!
12. We will start serving food as the first 50K runners are finishing.  This should be between 11:00 and 11:30.  All runners are welcome.  Family members and friends may purchase a meal ticket for $5.00.

The Course:
We will have the course very well marked.  There will be signs at every turn along the front side of the course.  We will also have White flagging and  white flags all along the course.  At critical areas we will use flower to mark large arrows on the ground.  It will be impossible to miss a turn.  Right!  If you pay attention you will not miss any turns, just don't blindly follow another runner.  None of us would ever do that!

The trail is about a good as any single track tail is the Southeast.  There are no technical sections just a lot of roots and in some areas, quite a few rocks.  You will need to watch the trail.  I removed some of the worst potential offenders last weekend but don't enjoy the view while running on the single track.  The worst (rocky) section is the 150 to 200 yards immediately after crossing the dam.  Be particularly careful here.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a very popular biking and hiking tail.  There will be signs at both ends of the trail to warn mountain bikers to watch for runners.  We will be running counterclockwise and about 90% of the bike traffic goes in the clockwise direction so you will see them coming.  BUMP (Birmingham Urban Mountain Pedalers) built and maintains the trail so be courteous to mountain bikers and hikers.

There is only one place to get off the single track trail (other than the horse trail) and that is Rattle Snake Ridge trail.  About half way around the back side this trail turns sharply off to the right and heads uphill.  Don't make any right turns on the back side of the lake.  It will be clearly marked.

50K runners will run 9 laps around the lake.  As you finish the ninth lap we will direct you to a final 1000 yard loop to complete the 50K.

Less than two weeks to race day

We now have over 60 runners in the Run for Kids Challenge.

Nabeel's Cafe and Market is not only going to donate a gift certificate but will provide their own gift package.  The package will include the $50 gift certificate, a bottle of their famous salad dressing and a Nabeel's t-shirt delivered  in a Nabeel's cooler.  We are going to draw a 5th raffle ticket to give this package away.

We have had one out of state runner purchase a book of raffle tickets just to make the donation asking that if she wins one of the packages to donate back to Camp SAM to give to one of the Camp SAM families.

Another local resident sent in has entry fee for the 50K but will not be able to run because he will be in Italy.  If we draw his name, his gift certificates will go to a Camp SAM family as well.

Here is the link directly to the raffle sales page at Ultrasignup.com.

Last year, with temperatures hitting 100 deg. by mid afternoon.  Perhaps the biggest hit of the races was Paul Champion and his Doodle's Homemade Sorbets and Ices truck.  He gave free sorbets to all runners, volunteers and support crews.  Again this year he is going to bring his truck out for the race.  We are thrilled to have him back.  He will also have a team of young runners running a 50K relay.
Thank you again, Paul.

$500 worth of Gift Certificates for Birmingham Dining

Amazingly, no one had donated $25 for a chance to win almost $500 worth of gift certificates from all those restaurants sponsoring the Run for Kids.  So, we are making a change.  We are going to make the gift certificate giveaway a Raffle.


We have almost $500 worth of $50 gift certificates to some great Birmingham restaurants.  They will be given away at the Run for Kids Challenge on May 5th.  We are selling raffle tickets for $5.00 each, for a chance to win $100 in gift certificates.

Anyone can purchase tickets, even non runners however you must be present at the race, at the time of the drawing to win. (That is, you must be in the vicinity of the Cedar Pavilion when we draw the winning names at about 9:30 or running on the course.)

We will draw four names from those that have purchased raffle tickets.   We will place the name of each restaurant on a slip of paper and put them in a box.   The four raffle winners will then draw two restaurant names out of a box and receive the gift certificates for the selected restaurants.

Raffle tickets may be purchased at Ultrasignup at registration or anytime.  Use this link to purchase tickets.
Buy raffle tickets at Ultrasignup.com.

Checks may also be mailed to:

Run for Kids Challenge,
   c/o David Tosch,
   4697 Bridgewater Rd,
   Birmingham, AL 35243.
Please do not mail cash.

Additional tickets may be purchased Friday afternoon May 4, at late registration and package pickup at Oak Mountain State Park, and Saturday morning right up until time for the drawing about 9:30 AM.

Friday Package Pickup & Late Registration.

Package Pickup will be Friday Afternoon, May 4th at the Cedar pavilion at Oak Mountain State Park, from 4:00 PM until 6:30 PM.  If no one is using the Dogwood Pavilion we will use it. Late registration will also be open Friday.   I will send an email to registered runners before the race that can be printed and will allow you to enter the park (Friday afternoon only) without charge.  Saturday, the park admission fee is $ 3.00 pre person.  If you are coming out to register, tell the park attendant you are there to register for the race and they will probably let you in without charge.  Preregister to be sure.  

Also, the shirt order will go in on Wednesday of next week.  If you want a shirt, register in the next four days.  As I have mentioned before, I will not order extra shirts so only preregistered runners will get shirts.


Attached are aerial shots of the Dogwood Pavilion and the Cedar Pavilion.  The Cedar will be the race start and finish location and the aid station.

Details About the Drawing for the Gift Package

The Run for Kids Challenge is only 26 days away.  We now have seven restaurants that have donating $50 gift certificates to the Run for Kids and two more that are supposed to get their gift certificates to me this week.  (Brio's donated $75.)  We have make some changes in the qualifications for chances to win the gift package so here is the update.

We want to encourage everyone to raise additional donations for Camp Smile-A-Mile.  To that end, we have decided to add a little incentive.  We will have a gift package available to all runners that decide to participant. The package will contain gift certificates to various restaurants and other businesses around Birmingham.  Each person that raises at least $ 25.00 will be entered into a drawing for this package.  The packages will be worth the effort.  As we sign up sponsors to donate gift certificates we will post their names to the site.  More information will follow.  All donations must be received before the start of the race on Saturday, May, 5 for you to be included in the drawing.  

Rules:
1.  All gift certificates go to the winner of the gift package.
2.  Each $25.00 donation will earn one chance to win the gift package.
   (A donation of $100.00 will earn 4 entries.)
3.  Only race participants, REGISTERED RUNNERS* are eligible to win the gift package.
4.  REGISTERED RUNNERS* must be present race day to win the package.
5.  Donations can be made directly to Camp SAM, but please notify me of you donation.  If I don't know   you donated, I can't put your name in the drawing.
6.  Donations can be mailed directly to me at the address below.
7.  Registration for the gift package will close at 7:45 AM, May 5th shortly before the start of the Trail Festival Run.
8.  Runners must be present at the time of the drawing.  To be considered present, participants must be a the   start/finish area located at the Cedar Pavilion at Oak Mountain State Park or running in the events.
9. The drawing will be held at the Cedar pavilion in front of everyone present at approximately 9:30AM.

* REGISTERED RUNNERS eligible to receive the gift package must be registered in one of the three Run for Kids Challenge Races to be held on May 5, 2012.  Anyone registered is eligible for the drawing.  Winner must be present at the time of the drawing.

Donations must be received by the Run for Kids Challenge on or before May 5th.  Sorry, we cannot accept cash.  Checks should be made payable to Camp SAM or Camp Smile-A-Mile and sent to:

   Run for Kids Challenge,
   c/o David Tosch,
   4697 Bridgewater Rd,
   Birmingham, AL 35243.

We will accept checks at package pickup Friday afternoon (location to be announced) or at late registration Saturday Morning.