Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Curse of the Katy 5K Continues


Keeping up with tradition, we got rain not once, but twice this year at the annual Michelob Ultra Katy 5K. For the first time in the run’s 16 year history the race was canceled due to severe weather on the original date in May. Both the Katy Picnic and race course had been set up, but shortly before race time the area was struck with tornado speed winds. After surveying the damage to find our start line destroyed, tents blown over and debris and flooding along the race course we knew the damage was beyond repair and we had to cancel the event to keep our participants and volunteers safe.

Fortunately we were able to reschedule and give everyone involved a second chance. Although the day started off with a bad case of déjà vu as the weather forecast showed severe storms and baseball size hail in the hours to come, the weather held off. Thousands of supporters showed on June 12th, to run the race and attend the party. Close to 50 area restaurants served food to our hungry runners and of course the Michelob Ultra was in full flow. The run is a local favorite with the race selling out for the past several years.

The Michelob Ultra Katy 5K is our largest fundraiser of the year helping us to reach our annual operating goal of $700,000. While we hoped to net $200,000 from the 5K, we came in just a few thousand shy due to the cost of setting up the event on both dates.  All-in-all we still chalk this year’s event up as a huge success thanks to our sponsors, participants, volunteers and 5K committee. Planning has already started for next year’s event and we look forward to see what Mother Nature throws at us next!

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