February 8, 2025
The Fostering Footsteps 5K in Raleigh, North Carolina, had the most encouraging route of the 41 races we’ve run on this trip, guiding runners along Success Way, Ability Drive, and Confidence Avenue. It also had perhaps the most interesting course feature of our 41 races – parking garages.
The race took place at Wake Technical Community College’s Scott Northern Wake Campus and supported the Wake Tech Foundation’s Fostering Bright Futures (FBF) Youth Program. The FBF Program is a student success program that helps foster youth make the transition from Wake County’s foster care program to independent young adulthood.
The course curved around the campus’s loop road and parking lots on its out and back route, with a spur added onto the return route. In the middle of it all were two six level parking garages to traverse. The parking decks were of the rectangular variety, with each level sloping from one end to the other to join the next level. Up we ran, traversing each level before turning 180 degrees to traverse the next level, one after another clockwise until we reached the end of the open air sixth level and reversed course, running downhill one level after another back to the street. Forty feet after exiting the first parking garage we entered the second and ran six levels up and six levels down all over again.
The garages were a first for us in our 5K adventure, and had an interesting effect. Running up and down the parking decks felt like ascending and descending a distanceless void, moving vertically with no sense of forward progress. This made the race pass by more quickly. With no sense of distance, it was a surprise to see the Mile 1 marker at the top of the first garage, and it was a surprise to pass the Mile 2 marker 200 feet after exiting the second garage.
The garages themselves were a nice surprise. While each of the 41 courses we’ve run had qualities that separated them from the others, those qualities tend to reflect variations on a handful of themes. The parking decks stand apart from any of those themes. It was fun to experience a completely new course feature.
After a series of small, local, wintertime races, this was the biggest race we’ve run in six or seven states. The 215 people in the 5K and 61 people in the 10K made for a mass start of 276 people.
Within that mass of people, Julie finished 2nd of 13 in her age group, 14th among females, and 48th of 215 overall. Ryan finished 1st of 14 in his age group, 10th among males, and 11th of 215 overall.
Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds
Ryan is a pretty upbeat guy pretty much all the time. A generally easy-going and even-keeled fella, nothing shakes him too much in any direction. That said, Ryan started this race crabby. We arrived at the race an hour ahead of time, which, in our experience, 40 races into this trip, has always been plenty of time to get our bibs, get dressed and ready and still have time for a nice relaxed warm-up, which Ryan really likes to get a chance to do. Well, this 5K had the nerve to not conform to our expectations and our schedules! While 215 participants wasn’t anywhere near the biggest or busiest of races we’ve been in, it was enough to cause Ryan to end up using most of his pre-race time waiting in a long line to pick up our bibs. How dare the race not realize that we would casually saunter up to grab our bib not too long before race time after chilling out in the van for 20 minutes before heading out to get them. Heads up if you don’t easily pick up on sarcasm. We are quite aware that we have been more than lucky that keeping such a close schedule and being able to roll up to races just before race time and be able to quickly grab our bib has been a privilege.
But on this particular morning when Ryan was really looking forward to a nice “early” arrival with “plenty” of time for a pre-race warm up, no such perspective could preclude a natural surge of crabbiness to arise as the minutes ticked by and chewed up his warm-up time while he waited in line.
The fun of the course, the cheerful and encouraging people of the race and throughout the race course and a perfectly cool temperature for running all helped decompress that crabbiness over the course of the 3.12 miles.
Well, over the course of whatever amount of miles we ran, that is. While Julie’s watch clocked her race in at a solid 3.13 which is pretty much exactly a 5K, Ryan’s Garmin clocked in at a 3.39. We ran into other people who’s watches clocked a longer course. It’s possible some watches had trouble calculating distance up and down the parking garages.
Whatever distance it was, we enjoyed running it.
One of the neat things that happened in this race happened before it started. After a really inspiring speech from the race organizer followed by another burst of inspiration from a young man who had benefited in his life from the work of the organization sponsoring it, they explained that the parking garages we would scale were good metaphors for the experiences of foster kids working through the system to get a good education and working to thrive and succeed. One layer after another, they would have to work to scale the obstacles in front of them, and that, the more encouragement they had along the way, the better and easier they could do it. The metaphor proved apt, as we took on the course and found the garages both challenging, doable and helped along by all the supportive volunteers along the way.
Another neat thing happened before the race as they turned on a recording of the Star-Spangled Banner before the start. It seemed that many of the folks were looking around for a flag to face while they listened to the nation’s anthem. Julie always runs with a mini-American flag as we travel each of these 50 states. So, she raised the little flag up above her head and rows of people that were standing near her turned to face the flag above her head for the duration of the song. When it was done, an older couple in front of her turned and gave her a heartfelt, “Thank you”.
Thanks to missing his beloved warm up, for Ryan’s first mile, his lungs were tight and his legs were heavy. He eventually loosened up. For the level of warm up and body feeling he had going in, he came out of it feeling like he had a pretty good race keeping to a fairly steady clip throughout. He put in some real effort without ever feeling like he was at the edge.
Likely thanks to those parking garages, overall, it seemed to be a slower course than most. Out of all 215 people, there was only one person that clocked in under 20 minutes. While Julie came in second in her age group out of 13, she ran one of her slowest races ever, with a 33:02. The only person faster than her in her age group ran a 31:14. You’d have to get all the way up to the 5th place overall female to see a time clock in under 30 minutes for the females.
Days before this race, Julie was considering turning the engines on a little bit and making it the first race in months that she would tackle it like a real race. A few things happened to change her mind on that completely. One, she slept like garbage the night before – though not for any reason beknownst to her. When she woke up, brushing her teeth sounded like exhausting work. Then, just before the gun went off, Ryan let her know about the parking garages. At that point, she surrendered completely that she would be enjoying a nice jog and would not even worry about negative splits, knowing it would be a bit tougher with those garages showing up right in the middle of the course. Then the final hit came as she was lined up at the women’s bathroom and a woman came in and said, “It’s time to line up for the race”. With a full bladder, a tired body and a relaxed mind, Julie decided to just enjoy the fun of the experience.
When the race was over, Julie told Ryan this was officially the weirdest race experience she’d yet had. “I’ve never felt so completely energized and relaxed and exhausted and worked over at the same time!” Julie ran solid and strong the whole time, feeling light and easy every step of the way. She felt like she was cruising at a steady clip and not working all that hard throughout the whole race. Why is that weird? Well, she felt exactly the same during the times she was running 12-minute miles up the parking garage (but felt like she was cruising at 9:30s) as when she was running 7:45s down the last quarter of a mile towards the finish line, still feeling like she was going for an easy jog, even though her heart rate was an insane 186 sailing down that hill. Her splits were a 10:38, followed by a very relaxed 12:29 up those garages and a final mile at a 9:00 pace, cruising over the finish line at a 6:13 pace. Despite the strangeness of feeling exhausted and energized at the same time, this was one of the runs Julie enjoyed the most. It just felt good. It was a fun and enjoyable atmosphere and, despite a full bladder and an empty sleep bank, she had a great time.
Despite us both bringing some crabbiness and sleepiness to the starting line, we both crossed the finish line with decent times, a strong race and big smiles on our faces.
R and J in the USA 
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