Event Description
Excited about 510 Hikers inaugural 5K at beautiful Lake Merritt!! The Bay Area is one of the greatest places to run in the world and the running community is as strong as anywhere in the country. You can find a 5K or 10K with a fancy theme name practically every week of the year if you look close enough. Unfortunately, many groups are left underrepresented in these events. When I line up at the start line of a run in the Bay Area and 90% of the participants are of the same ethnic background, I believe somewhere, somehow, the community is failing. The narrative of who participates in these events is one that we need to play an active role in changing. This race will do that by reaching out and encouraging a diverse crowd filled with people of all walks of life, talk and short, thin and wide, white and black. Diversity reigns supreme in the Bay, why can't it be in these events as well? Let’s be serious, this is the Bay Area and our diversity is what makes us strong and unique. We encourage everyone who believes in unity in the community to join in this change. We have worked to make this event as affordable as possible to help encourage all walks and people with all levels of bank accounts to attend. We don't want lack of funds to be the reason anyone stays home, even if it means taking from our own pocket so please, reach out to us if you have children especially you want to attend but may not have the budget for. We also want to be especially encouraging to get these kids out, off social media and off the couch. I can guarantee you they will NOT forget the Saturday morning they got out with mom or dad or both and went to an event at the lake with all sorts of people, all connecting, all in the name of unity in the community. It's why we offer special pricing for kids (kids UNDER 8 are $2. kids 8-15 are $14 under the special pricing tab). In the end, we want to see as many people smiling as they are sweating, kids included.
For our first timers, allow this be an activity that helps motivate you get to the gym to prepare for. We want hitting that register button to be an incentive for you to get active!! New to the Bay? Great!! Please join in!! We got some tricks up our sleeves to promote connecting everyone. If you come to this event and do not meet 3/4 new people by the time you get back in your car, you will have missed out on the best part of the event, the people!! Our aim is to have everyone going back home safe and feeling accomplished while marking their calendar for next year after this inaugural event!!
We will have water and aid stations on the course. Prizes for top finishers, ribbons for all the children and a huge raffle for everyone who shows up and pins a bib to their running shirt (so far, we have 30 bottles of wine, wireless headphones sets and some great running swag already collected!!). We also have medals for all adult finishers who cross the finish line!!!! In addition, we have a great race shirt lined up!! With help from the City of Oakland Parks Department, Kind Healthy Snacks, Sports Basement, Pinpoint Training and others, the Run/Walk for the Love of the Bay 5K will be an unforgettable event created by people from the Bay Area, for the Bay Area.
Please don't delay in registering, we are capped at 200 people for this location so once we hit that mark, registration will end!!
We will all be meeting on the front Lawn at the Boathouse next to FairyLand at the lake to begin the race. Just look for smiling faces, balloons and red shirts!! Gun goes off sharply at 8:15am for the runners followed those who want to walk, jog, stroll and simply enjoy a community walk around the Lake.
There will be two ways to pick up Bibs!! First, by coming to Sports Basement at 2727 Milvia St, Berkeley, CA 94703 where you can enjoy some music and bites to snack on between 4pm and 7pm on March 8th. Or, the morning of the race at 6:45am sharp we will open up pickup closing EXACTLY at 8AM for the 8:15am Race.
Take photos in front of the clock, have fun but always be careful of anyone running behind you as the race concludes. We are going to have people out taking photos and posting them post race!!
8:00am gather to the start, hugs, high fives and making sure laces are tied.
8:15am runners start, followed by the walkers and strollers (we LOVE dogs, we would prefer you keep any dog over ten pounds home however).
10:00am Raffle and prizes (in the time between race and raffle we will have post race recovery bars and water and fruit for all the runners). Walkers, get back in 105 minutes, we don’t want to call your bib number and you not be here!!
Parking is $5 On Bellevue in the Fairyland parking area. On the street, it's metered starting at 8am.
