Annual Pride Run 5K will be virtual this year, but organizers will also host optional in-person runs
Race participants can run anywhere, any time between June 5 and June 20.
This year’s Pride Run 5K, an annual event hosted by the DC Front Runners running club, will be held virtually from Saturday, June 5 to Sunday, June 20.
Due to the delayed relaxing of restrictions imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which only began to lift two weeks ago, it was too late to organize an official in-person race. As a result, participants are asked to run or walk a 5-kilometer, or 3.1-mile, course, at some point within the 15-day period, take a photo of themselves, and submit their race time to organizers, who will then place them in order.
The price to register is $30, plus a $3.24 sign-up fee. Participants will receive a race packet, a participation medal, and coupons for Pacers Running and DC Brau. They also have the option to purchase a T-shirt for an additional $15 (shipping included), which will be mailed to them in July. Proceeds benefit local charity organizations serving the LGBTQ+ and youth communities.
But organizers didn’t want to just keep the event virtual, as it was in 2020. Instead, they have arranged various meet-up events, with the chief one taking place on Saturday, June 12, from 8 a.m.-noon at Congressional Cemetery in D.C., where the annual race is typically held.
“We decided to make some smaller scale in-person experiences available to our runners,” says Ivan Cheung, the race director for the DC Front Runner Pride Run 5K. “So on June 12, we are letting people sign up for slots from 8 a.m. to noon. And we will basically have up to 25 people per every 15 minutes so that they can still come to the cemetery, and they can get a race-like experience. We’ll have water, we’ll have some giveaways, we’ll have a starting and finish line, we’ll have a course for them. …. And hopefully we will cycle through about 100 people or so.”
“It’s not going to actually be an organized race. So what we are saying is, if you’ve already registered or choose to still register, you can come out and run,” says Carlos Hill, a member of the DC Pride Run Committee. “You’ll get a bib and you will have the opportunity to run a measured course. But it’s not like we’re going to do an actual race. It’s it’s too late for us to make those adjustments and tweaks between the time that everything was changed, in terms of the city protocol, to the actual start of the race.”
In addition to the run at Congressional Cemetery, organizers have planned other group events, starting with an run, co-hosted by TriOut, a group of LGBTQ triathletes, on Saturday, June 5, from 10 a.m. to noon at Hains Point, with a picnic to follow. On Thursday, June 10, Pacers Running and the DC Front Runners will host a 5K run on the track at Banneker Community Center in Washington, D.C.
On Saturday, June 19, Ainsley’s Angels, one of the charities benefitting from the Pride Run, will host its own meet-up at 7 a.m. at Anacostia Park. Because Ainsley’s Angels works with people with disabilities, participants will run while pushing wheelchairs. Later that day, at 10:30 a.m. Avalon Bay Communities, one of the race sponsors, will hold an additional meet-up at the Washington & Old Dominion trail by Caboose Tavern, 520 Mill St NE, Vienna, Virginia.
“With the pandemic getting better and people really excited about getting together to run a race, we pivoted a little bad to make some in-person possibilities for people to enjoy a race-like environment,” says Cheung.
The annual DC Front Runners Pride Run 5K will be held virtually from June 5-20. The registration deadline is 11:59 p.m. on July 20. To register, or for more details on in-person meet-ups, visit dcfrpriderun.com.
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