A few months ago I applied to become an ambassador for Omron and Active. They chose me, along with 100 other women across the country. My job was to put together a team of 5 people to walk their first 5k. We all received an Omron Pedometer, a t-shirt and a few race entry. Well, on Sunday was our official walk and it was awesome!
I had everyone meet there at 7AM so that we could get our packets and still have time to put the chip on, put our bib on, take the bags back to the cars and then do some stretching. The actual walk started at 8:30AM and we ended up being a tad early. Whenever I go to races, they are usually very crowded and it is best to just get there early. In this case, there were not too many people there so there were no lines and there were plenty of volunteers. Once everyone got there we made sure to go to the restroom and then do some stretches. I was very impressed by the race location, these were noooo porta potties!
They had an attendant, huge stalls, wash clothes to dry your hands, lotion and some sample perfume from the stores…and oh ya…NO LINE! I can deal with that. (sorry the pic is so blurry, I wanted to take it fast)
While we were outside, cookie monster walked by (a skinny one) so we took a picture:
I actually saw that guy in the costume running on the course, the Nesquik bunny was out there too and I cannot imagine how hot they were under those costumes…yuck! Also, would not like to be the person that rents that costume next!
We then wandered over to the start and saw some other Team Go Smart people, so we took another picture 
Then a guy walked by and said they wanted everyone over at the stage, so we all walked over there to do a warm up led by another Team Go Smart ambassador!
Walking....
Warming up...
Melissa getting everyone pumped!
Once we were done with the warm up we went back to the start line and we stayed toward the back, here is everyone at the start line…what you see is basically everyone who did the race. A very small race if you ask me, but very well organized!
Then they shot off the gun and we were off and walking! I had my Garmin on and was able to tell my team how far we had went, our pace and how much we had to go. For the most part we all stayed together in one section and everyone did a great job! My mom was struggling a little bit, so we stopped so that she could drink some water and get her heart rate down. At one point I was ready to tell her we could cut through a section to shorten the distance, and she said “no, I want to do the whole course”…so i was like OK!
Here is everyone after we finished:
So proud of them!
And here are our results:
We all finished under an hour and kept a really good pace throughout.
After the race they had a little expo area, so we walked through 3 times and picked some things up. Here is my bounty that I collected:
Basically, they had these booths set up with all these giveaways that were being run by volunteers. There were not that many racers, but a TON of free stuff! So I took advantage of it…who wouldn’t? 
Overall a really good race, I thought it was one of the most organized races that I have done. I will definitely do it next year and will probably run either the 5k or 10k, I also like it because it is so close to where I live. We also got really cool race shirts from Affliction, this is not your ordinary race shirt!
And there are some big wings on the back that I probably can live without…but still cool…
I am very proud of my team and I am glad that I could get them out walking! Being healthy is so important and I am glad that Omron and Active did this program this year, I had a great time!
Posted by Scott on October 20, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I think what you did, volunteering your time and efforts, to form a team, and help them achieve this reward for all their hardwork is simply amazing. More people need to take note of your example and do this themselves.