LITTLE ROCK — The Chase Race and Paws is different. Wait, make that “are different.”
Saturday’s big running event in Conway is actually two footraces - a 2-miler for people and a 1-mile race for people and their pets.
By “pets,” race director Don Potter says, he means “dogs on leashes.”
And dogs are pretty much what show up - with a few exceptions. Noncanine pets sometimes attend too, critters nobody expects to see outside a zoo, farm or humane trap.
“We don’t encourage that, we don’t invite that, they just show up,” Potter says, wonder in his voice. “I think we’ve had an ostrich, a llama. We normally have a raccoon, but it is paralyzed, and they push it in a stroller. But they’re there every year with that.
“You just kindly turn your back when those things show up and [think], ‘I didn’t really see that, did I?’”
What Potter and his 50 sponsors want to see is joy.
The race commemorates the pleasure his son Chase took in animal companions throughout his short life.
When he was 12, Chase fell from a ridge while playing with his dog; a year later, he suffered a second head injury while working out at school. The damage to his brain darkened a once sunny personality. His parents tried sending him to different schools;
they tried home-schooling; they placed him at a residential facility for children with brain injuries.
But the 13-year-old killed himself in March 2005.
His mother, Cheryl, took her own life later that year.
Rather than be crushed by grief, Don Potter did something positive: He was a runner, and he knew how to conduct a footrace.
So he founded the Chase Race and Paws to raise money for the Friends of Conway Animal Shelter and for brain-trauma research at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
Seven years later, Chase Potter’s legacy is a championship event in the Arkansas Grand Prix series and, more to the point, a popular community happening that gives animal lovers a chance to play together.
TO THE DOGS
For competitive racers like Kathleen Rea of North Little Rock, who at age 51 placed second overall among masters women in the 2011 Chase Race, the Paws is a delightful change of pace.
That doesn’t mean that she changed her pace. She won her 2-mile award against the other humans by maintaining a 7:10 minute per mile pace, and that’s also how fast she and her boyfriend’s border collie Maggie ran in the Paws Race - beating all other women and their dogs.
Rea thought of it as a fun run, and so she tied the timing chip onto herself rather than onto Maggie (which might have been an advantage). But she says the young men finishing around her and Maggie did seem to be running all-out, but “maybe they weren’t competing. Maybe they were like I was - just holding on to the dog and enjoying that exuberance together.”
Rea says running with a dog is better than running alone.
“I had a Labrador retriever, Buddy, that was my favorite running partner, and it was just a joy every morning to get up and run with him. One good thing about a dog is on those mornings you don’t want to get up, you’ve got to get up because your dog is like, Are we going? Are we going?’”
After Buddy died two years ago, Rea gave up running for several months, doing other exercise instead. But her first morning jog with Maggie renewed her enthusiasm.
“I was concerned about taking her to [the Paws Race]because being a border collie she’s a little bit high energy and has a really quick attention span, and I thought that she would get distracted. But it was really amazing because about a quarter-mile into that dog-and-owner race I saw something ‘click’ with her. Border collies are so smart, you know, and she was just like, ‘Oh, I get it.’”
After the turnaround on the out-and-back route, Rea feared Maggie would bounce offcourse to play with the dozens of dogs still heading out but that didn’t happen. “Dogs would even veer toward her, and it was almost like she was just like, ‘I don’t have time for you. I have a job to do.’
“She gets it. When she gets something, I mean, she gets it. She was so focused on that finish line I held on for dear lifeand ran as fast as I could.”
COSTUME CONTEST
Potter suggests that owners wait until after the running to dress up their dogs for the costume contest. He hopes to see some fancy and elaborate canine frippery.
Also, he jokes, owners might want to let their pets freshen up before they dress.
“We have a powder room for the dogs ... no, I’m just kidding,” Potter says. “But they can go into PetSmart. Dogs are invited back there. PetSmart’s really hospitable toward us. They open up at 5 o’clock in the morning to accommodate us.”
ZaZa will bake pizza on the spot using its portable brick oven. And “of course we’re going to have the hot dogs,” he promises. “I say you cansit and watch the dog costume contest and eat all the hot dogs you possibly can get down while you’re watching that.”
Pets will be available for adoptions, and K-9 dogs will demonstrate their skills.
PEOPLE RACE, TOO
New this year for the 2-mile people race is a $100 prize for setting an overall course record, male or female.
The course begins in front of PetSmart in the Conway Commons Shopping Center and runs south along Elsinger Boulevard, making its way into a residential neighborhood where runners go around a block before retracing their steps to PetSmart.
“The course is flat, flat, flat,” Potter says.
Registration, which costs $20 for either race ($30 for both races, $55 for a family of three or more), is available at chaserace.info through midnight Thursday. Race-day registration will cost $5 more in all categories.
The 2-mile race begins at 8 a.m.
Racers who need someone to watch their dogs while they run should talk to Potter, he says. “Look me up, that way I’ll be certain that someone reliable will be holding their dog.
“And that’s no problem,” he says. “We can take care of quite a few dogs that way.”
More information is at arkrrca.com and (501) 514-4370.
ActiveStyle, Pages 27 on 03/05/2012