By John Focke

&8220;I’m not a number!&8221;

Words of the great Bob Seger shouted in front of the

Silver Bullet Band on the Hollywood Nights album.

Words to live by and some

I tried to live by until last Sunday when I became a number.

Number 637 in

the Grand Old Days On The Go 8K run.

On Sunday morning, Ol’ No. 637 lined up with 762 of his closest friend

to run along Grand Ave. in St. Paul, as the kick off to Grand Old Days, a festival held each year that brings in over 300,000 people to attend the

parade and catch live music acts.

This was the first real &8220;running&8221; event I have ever participated in and I was in for a shock.

When I worked at Champs Super Sports in the Mall of America after high school I can remember a commercial that ran on Champs TV which showed an Addidas

running campaign featuring the slogan &8220;Runners yeah we’re different.&8221;

The ad showed people running in the worst possible conditions: rain, heat, snow, sleet, and I thought to myself, &8220;Runners yeah we’re crazy!&8221;

Well Sunday morning there I was lined up with all the other crazies about to run for no apparent reason.

Some things I noticed while warming up before the race.

We had to get there at 6:30 in the morning to register, even though the run was not until 8, so I had plenty of time to observe my surroundings.

One of the funniest things I saw was the husbands of some racers.

At one point I was walking behind a couple. The woman was racing, her husband (in khaki shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers, and huge mug of coffee, and

lawn chair) was not.

At one point his wife said there was a 5K after the first race, which prompted the husband (who obviously had no intention of running) to say, well if I had known that I’d a signed up, to which his wife replied, &8220;you have on running shoes and there’s still time.&8221;

Well, that was greeted by a lot of hemming and hawing by the husband who eventually

sauntered over to the mini doughnut hut to escape.

During the run it was amazing the number of people on the side of the road who were cheering on the runners.

This was a first for me, I never expected people to come out to something like this, let alone cheer for someone they didn’t know.

But at mile three there was a shout &8220;Looking good number 637!&8221;

I glanced down and saw they were talking to me.

I almost stopped and walked over to say thanks.

At one point I passed the water stop (where they hand you water as you run past) and just on the other side I saw a cheese curds stand, and imagined myself knocking the water glass away and slamming a cup of cheese curds instead.

The run went by fast, it was amazing how the encouragement of the people on the side of the road, the sights of the festival being put up and the other runners distracted me from the task at hand and before I knew it I was crossing the finish line.

It was at this point I realized why people run these things.

The race ends and then the race volunteers treat the runners as if they were royalty, that or the hungriest people on the face of the earth.

The first stop, the water tank, then to the vitamin water stand (a new form of Gatorade) I was then shuffled to the Snickers Marathon bar stand (a new form of Power Bar) then down to the Great Harvest stand where they give you huge slices of bread (after that I kept looking for the ham, cheese and mustard stand but couldn’t find it) and finally it’s all capped off by the cookie stand.

By the time I made it through there I thought I would need to run another 8K I was so full.

If this is the treatment after a five-mile run I can only wonder what happens when you finish a marathon, do they just take you straight to Old Country Buffet for steak night?