Run for the Water

Gilbert Tuhabonye stopped by a Bible study at my church earlier in the year and told his fascinating story. If you don’t know his back story, I encourage you to go to
to read more about him. He mentioned Run for the Water and I knew I had to participate. Each registration provides one person in Burundi with clean water for life. That alone was reason enough to participate.
The 5k itself was very flat which I appreciated since I hadn’t ran much at all over the summer. It began on the First Street bridge, took us down Caesar Chavez then down the street next to Austin High School and back. There were two water stations during the race as well as porta-​potties.
As I was finishing, they were rolling out the banner for the 10 mile finisher and I was half tempted to run through it but I wasn’t daring enough. I was surprised to see they had finisher medals for us. In addition to medals, volunteers were handing out water and boxes of jerky were set out.
After the finish line, several vendor tents lined the First Street bridge handing out swag, coupons, snacks and beverages. Keller Williams was handing out breakfast tacos and even had a fun photo booth which sent an email video compilation of your photos to post online.
Just five days later Kreutz Photography sent out email downloads of run photos. They don’t charge, but ask for a small donation to cover costs.
Run for the Water was a blast and is a run for everyone including children and your furry family members.

I participated in Run for the Water for the first time over the weekend, and it was a great experience!
Packet pickup was at Luke’s Locker, and I went the first day around lunchtime. There were only a couple people ahead of me in line, so the wait was only a few minutes. I got a sweet tech tee (the men’s and women’s were different shades of blue btw, which is nice. no more boyfriend stealing mine and claiming it’s his), a race guide and a $ 10 gift certificate to Whole Earth. Nice!
I did the 5k, which had a wonderfully flat course. (The 10 mile course is… not flat.) We started at the S. 1^st street bridge, headed west down Cesar Chavez, turned around and headed back toward the bridge. There were a couple water/​gatorade stations along the course, and port-​a-​potties and bathrooms aplenty. The race had around 2000 entrants, I believe, and wasn’t divided into waves, so it was a little crowded at the beginning but it thinned out pretty fast.
Upon reaching the finish line, I was rewarded with a sweet medal and some bottled water. There were a number of event sponsors handing out cool swag & food, and Keller Williams had a fun photo booth.
Like many other races, this one is for charity. Your entry fee provides one person in Burundi with clean water for life. How cool is that?!?