Insurance Offices of America, an industry group, sponsors 5K races to promote good healthy lifestyles for employees. In Orlando, the major companies of the town cooperate, and this year, the largest ever, we had 11,000+ people participate. Disney has the most, of course, but CCC has a high participation rate, with 418 this year (our best), the second most from one company, though we are not second largest in town. 5K is 3.1 miles for those who are wondering.
Our whole family participated. We brought one of Melissa’s friends and set up near the tent for CCC, on the grass by the east side of Lake Eola, the original location of Orlando when cattlemen first scouted out a suitable living area. The downtown of Orlando now is on the west side of the lake, and so we were watching a beautiful sunset between the towers. The east and north sides of the lake are full of old houses and huge trees, and have brick streets. Our circuit started in a downtown street on the south side, went uptown on the east, then across the north into the brick streets and a bit of a northeast extension, down the west side and back through a couple park areas to the south side of the lake again. Not much in the way of hills – this is Florida!
The whole 11,000 people got lined up with seeded racers first, then runners, then walkers. Our son Ben joined the runners and he turned in a time of 28 minutes and a little bit. The first place finisher ran a blazing 15 min 36 sec. Counting from when we finally got to the starting line, until we finally crossed under the finish, Rochelle and I and Melissa and Josh made it in 58 minutes, 45 seconds, a good walking pace.
Afterward we grabbed the box dinners and Gatorade provided and recovered. It was great fun being out with everyone on such a beautiful day, and times like this we get to see staff we don’t always see at headquarters as the place is so big our paths don’t cross much. We’re grateful everyone made it around and had a fun time together!
