Friday Five: Bagel Chase

While the Bagel Chase may have a tenuous connection to Friday Five, I’m going with this topic because a) the Bagel Chase was a 5 kilometre loop and b) the Bagel Chase was awesome in at least 5 different ways!

Debra – adventurous as always (and to be credited for photos in this post!) – encouraged me to sign up and the two of us competed as #WestVanRunCrew. Keep in mind that we did this on the heels of the MEC North Vancouver Trail Race on Saturday morning…

This was the fourth year of the Bagel Chase, but the first year I have been involved. The ‘race’ involves a 5k out-and-back route starting at Siegel’s Bagels in Kitsilano, crossing Burrard Bridge, along English Bay to the Cactus Club, and back again. Simple, right? Well…there’s more!

Here are 5 great things about the Bagel Chase!

Bagels

Siegel’s Bagels is the home of Montreal-style fresh bagels, and they are to die for…and bring back memories! During university, I spent a summer living and working in Montreal, part of a language exchange program between Ontario and Quebec. I worked in an all-French environment at an art museum, and ate some of the most amazing, fresh-out-of-the-oven bagels I’ve ever had. Siegel’s Bagels come pretty darn close.

Charity

The Bagel Chase partners with Community First Foundation supporting Backpack Buddies – providing backpacks of food to underprivileged kids in inner city schools. One registration option for the Bagel Chase was to donate to Backpack Buddies for a reduced entry fee. Brilliant! And at least one Bagel Chaser was donating cash for every lap of the race.

Laps – not Time

Those 5km loops? Not timed. Instead, the goal of the Bagel Chase is to complete as many laps (individual or team-wise) of the 5km route as possible over a weekend. In the end, about 76 folks participated, completing a combined total of 370 laps (i.e. 1850 km) in two days. The winner – Jeremy Hopwood, who I saw several times en route – ran 21 laps.

Prizes!

At the beginning of each lap, you’d enter your registration number into a computer. When you reached the turnaround point (Cactus Club), you’d grab a numbered ticket from the roll of tickets, return to the start, enter your number into the computer…and start again! Each ticket was an entry for a prize. Prizes were sponsored by a variety of local partners, and included food, gift cards, and running gear. I was very fortunate to win 100 free minutes with Evo, a local car sharing organization. Hooray for Evo!!

Community

Debra and I did one lap together. I ended up doing four in total. Debra kicked my butt and did 10 laps. And although I ran the route mostly solo, I kept running into familiar faces – Debra and I passed each other multiple times, but I also ‘ran’ into at least three other people I knew. Also, by the third lap, I was seeing the same people again and again. Lots of smiling, waving and laughing…a true community event!

I’m already looking forward to running the Bagel Chase in 2017…and committing to a few more laps as well!

What’s your favourite food-themed running event?

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Linking up with Eat Pray Run DC, Mar on the Run, and You Signed Up for What?! for this week’s Friday Five – Fitness!