Chicken Chunk Challenge -- Achieved!

I wasn’t terribly optimistic going into last Saturday’s Chicken Chunk Challenge 8k race. But hot damn, did we manage to rock it.

Our team for the charity run/walk was five strong (seven if you count our Support Crew of Adam and Philly) and we got a lot of attention for our sweet team shirts.

We also got lots of attention for being awesome; my brother won third place in the men’s overall division for his killer race time and I got a sweet prize package and round of applause for being the top fundraiser. My race time (46:54) was not good enough to get an award, but it was good enough to make me supremely pleased with my performance. Not a bad pace for an anxiety-ridden girl without sufficient time to train properly.

Overall, more than 150 runners and 80 dogs turned out for the inaugural event, which raised more than $12,000 for Home for Life animal sanctuary near Stillwater, Minn. Some of the helpers at the event were high school boys who work to train Home for Life dogs as therapy animals; it was awesome to meet them. It was even more awesome to know that of the roughly $5,500 raised by individual fundraisers, 1/5 of that came from the Chicken Chunk Challenge alone. As I rejoined my team after receiving  my gift bag, Adam looked at me with moist eyes and said, “You did a good thing, kid.”

Yeah, I did.

We did.

THANK YOU to everyone who donated; you are rockstars and I am so proud that Chicken Chunk’s name lives on in such a visible, helpful way.