I haven't been too concerned with
making this a post since I've been preoccupied with triathlons this season.
This Sunday Oct. 16 will be the 1st
annual PTOS & FAPTO Innovation 5K. I work for the US Patent and Trademark
Office and I'm on the board of the Patent and Trademark Office Society, with the
FAPTO being the Fitness Center at the Patent Office run by Sports
and Health. The idea for the race was conceived by a friend and myself although
we found out there was already an initiative to start a 5K at the office.
Neither of us knows if this happened because of mentioning it during small talk
or the ideas were completely independent. At this point it doesn’t matter, the
other race fell through and my friend and I are 2 of the 3 people organizing
this race. It originally started as a race for employees only although we
decided to open it up to the public. Ideally we would like to do something for
the community involving science and technology but, this year we’re just
concerned with getting the thing off the ground. Donating money raised is
difficult since no one can tell us if the same rules for soliciting money
federal employees apply to us even though we’re technically not part of the
government…all our members are. We’ve decided that raising awareness of all the
programs PTOS has in the community is the way to go this year.
It’s been a great experience so far.
We formed a planning committee, came up with a name, came up with a budget, got
a sponsor, created a t-shirt design, found a timing company, got the police to
shut down the roads and bought medals and prizes for the
winners.
It’s amazing how little it took to
get people on board. The city was more than happy to let us do it. (Probably
because one of the running store owners is on the panel you present your event
to) The Patent Office is letting us use just about whatever we want and the
Fitness
Center sponsored us for the
full amount of our estimated budget…even with the 20% margin of error I factored
in.
Right around 300 people have signed
up so far. Packet Pick-up was held today and will continue tomorrow. I’ve never
done more than volunteer for a water stop at a race but, it’s been a lot of fun
thus far.
Check back for an update on how the
race goes.
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