It’s the Bothell Alumni Run
It’s time for a run, Cougars.
Any and all Bothell High alumni are invited to the 2008 Alumni Run, hosted by track co-head coach Darrell Lee and the current cross-country team. The five-kilometer (3.1-mile) event will take place at 4 p.m. Aug. 28 at Big Finn Hill County Park in Bothell.
Lee, who is entering his sixth year as a Cougar coach, originated the idea of having the inaugural event last year as an opportunity for former graduates to show the current high-school athletes that the sport of running can continue to be pursued after they graduate. He pointed out Bothell products Amy Lia, who won the NCAA 1,500-meter run in 2006, and Jordan Boase, an All-American runner at the University of Washington who ran the world’s second-fastest 400 meters in the spring (44.82 seconds).
“We got a lot of kids that are running in college,” Lee said. “It’s a community. Runners tend to bond together and make friendships, and I wanted our current kids to see some of these old grads that are still out there running the roads.”
The 2007 event was only open to former members of the cross-country team, but after encouragement from the school’s administration, runners invited to this year’s gathering are all former Bothell graduates. Lee hopes the change will cause attendance to spike, as only 14 alumni attended last year.
“Most of them ran in the last five years, the kids that knew me, but since we’ve put it in the Bothell Alumni newsletter, we’ve gotten some e-mails from kids that have graduated in the ’90s ,” noted Lee, who coaches the team with Robert Eichelsdoerfer. “If we got alumni from all decades, it would be awesome, but the course can hold 100 easily. That would be a great goal.”
In addition to open registration, Lee is also planning to keep the current team members separate from the alumni. The graduates will run first, and they will get a chance to catch their breath while they watch the current Bothell team run.
What is Lee most looking forward to about hosting the Alumni Run?
“Just getting to see some kids that have either gone to Bothell or ran for Bothell come out of the woodwork, hopefully some will show up that we didn’t expect,” he said.
Although attendance was sparse, Lee still has some wonderful memories of last year’s event.
“One of our grads forgot to bring his shoes, and he ran barefoot the whole five kilometers, with no major injury,” Lee recalled. “He had a couple of cuts on his feet and that was it.”
While the event will be free of charge to attend and non-competitive in nature, official time will be kept for those that want to see how they measure up in a 5K run compared to last year, or from their high-school days.
“It’s just a time trial,” Lee said. “Afterwards, we’ll hopefully eat some food together and share some stories.”
Coach Lee encourages all attendees to bring food or beverages to share at the post-race potluck. Contact him at dlee@nsd.org with questions about the Alumni Run.
