It’s not every day that I run from the police. In actuality, I have never run from the police. I stick to running races instead. But yesterday, it was off to Abington, Massachusetts for the Abington Police Community Partners 5k. The race starts and finishes in front of the Abington Police Department and is a nice run through a relatively flat residential course. Several members of the Abington Police Department run the race and along with individual race entrants, teams from local businesses, restaurants, charities and other groups hit the course in support of the Abington Police Department’s community efforts.

I was proud to join the team from HUG Foundation for the second year in a row. The HUG Foundation was founded by Abington residents Alex and Lisa Bezanson shortly after Alex lost his sister Linda to cancer three years ago.

HUG, which stands for “Help Us Give“  was founded with the intention of helping people who may have stumbled onto hard times and need financial assistance.  After Linda died, Alex and Lisa realized how expensive  it was for people to visit loved ones in the hospital between parking, time off of work and other related expenses.

The 5k course is a nice run through Abington taking runners through the streets and neighborhood surrounding the police department. There is a brief stretch of running that takes place on a trail leading into a cemetery which on Armed Services Day adds a nice patriotic feel to the course. As runners exit the cemetery they run back in front of the police department where water and Gatorade is available about half-way through the race. The second half of the course takes runners past a park and a pond and includes the only real incline of the course heading back toward the second to last right back toward the police station.

Race time temperatures were pretty nice but some tough humidity made its way into the area following torrential downpours just an hour or so before race time. Even with the humidity, I felt quite good on the course and finished the race with a time of 23:16 good for 7:30/miles.

Please be sure to visit the Facebook page of The HUG Foundation by clicking here to see all the great work they do! They have been huge supporters of the Ace Bailey Children’s Foundation and Tufts Medical Center and we are proud to help support them!