It’s hard to believe that our New Balance Girls on the Run 5K Run is just a little over a month away. That’s right — on Sunday, May 23rd at 7:30 am over 3,000 GOTR girls and their buddy runners will gather at George Mason University in Fairfax to celebrate all that they have accomplished by participating in the Spring season of Girls on the Run.

Unlike other 5Ks, the Girls on the Run 5K is a celebratory run rather than a competitive race. The goal of the run is to provide the girls who participate in the Spring program with a race day experience complete with bib numbers, timing chips, a race announcer, and cheering fans at the finish line and a way to measure how they did in achieving their personal goal for the run.  Each and every girl who enters the 5K is a winner and the only competition any girl should feel is that she creates for herself as she strives to meet her personal goal whether that goal is simply to finish or to better her time from last year’s run.

In keeping with the non-competitive nature of the 5K run, we are no longer timing the buddy runners who participate in the run. After all, the goal of the buddy runner is to ensure that the girl they are running with has a fun, safe, and enjoyable race day experience.  And since the job of the buddy runner is to stay with the girl they are there to support, the time of the buddy runner should be exactly the same as the girl they are running with. So for us here at GOTR NOVA, not timing the buddy runners was a no brainer. And to make the decision even sweeter, the money we saved by not providing timing chips to this Spring’s buddy runners allowed us to provide 72 full scholarships for girls in our Spring program.  Just seemed like a win/win situation to us.

So to all the girls out there getting ready for the 5K, we hope you have a wonderful race day experience and feel amazing accomplishment at achieving your personal race day goal. And for all the buddy runners getting psyched to run with their special girl, thank you so much for making the New Balance Girls on the Run 5K one incredible race day experience for your runner and all the amazing runners who have made the Spring Girls on the Run season so incredible.