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An overcast and damp Saturday morning might be a good time to stay indoors and catch up with favorite characters in a novel, but it was go time for hundreds of parents, siblings and students of elementary schools in Walkersville.
Hundreds of runners beat the turf at Heritage Farm Park for the second annual Heritage 5K and 1-Mile Fun Run, a brace of foot races held to get elementary school children outdoors and active, raise money for their PTAs and express community togetherness.
Due to overcrowding at Walkersville Elementary, parents of students at Glade and Walkersville elementaries found themselves on opposite sides of a redistricting negotiation in 2007. The first race last year was designed to unite communities from both schools.
On Saturday, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters stood on the soaked grass beside the final stretch of unpaved gray track, cheering for the family members who hadn't yet crossed the line. A sports clock showed the running time.
Walkersville Elementary Principal Stephanie Brown and her counterpart at Glade Elementary School, Karen Miller, stood under umbrellas, ready to shower medals on children who crossed the finish line. Under a tent, Christine Behrendt, an assistant principal at Walkersville Elementary, helped keep spirits up by offering encouragement over a public address system.
Sports-friendly jams, meanwhile kept coming, and the volume from the music and the cheering and clapping never flagged.
The Vasquez family of Walkersville waited eagerly for Glade Elementary student Raquel Vasquez, 9, to complete the 5K.
"She ran this by herself; we didn't run with her," said Petrona Vasquez, Raquel's mother. "They had practices after school where the kids were able to stay and get ready for the race."
"At first we had doubts, but now she's proven herself and she's almost done," said Aaron Vasquez, 12, Raquel's brother and a student at Walkersville Middle School.
Raquel's older sister, Michelle, 16, a student at Walkersville High School, and father, Jorge Vasquez, also waited.
"Next year, everybody's going to run," said Jorge Vasquez.
The runners wore yellow number tags on their chests and straggled in with hair dampened by the mist.
It was the second year for the 5K to be held in Walkersville's Heritage Park, with the cooperation of the two schools. Glade Elementary used to have the 5K through the streets of Walkersville.
"Glade actually had been doing one for a few years," said Debi Capella, a mother of a fifth-grader and a key coordinator. "We were wanting to just try to do PTA events that were more community based and family oriented and kind of include the community in some of the school activities."
Last year's race raised $3,600 in profit that the two schools' PTAs split evenly.
Students at both schools have been training weekly after school for the five weeks leading up to the race, Capella said, adding that one of the goals for the race is to get students active before summer.
Soon, the runners in the mile-long fun run fanned out along the park's perimeter, with parents pushing strollers bringing up the rear. Some students were running for the second time, according to Stephanie Brown, the Walkersville Elementary principal.
"The kids are doing a great job," she said. "They're beating their parents and outshining everyone."
E-mail Jeremy Hauck at jhauck@gazette.net.
