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Health & Fitness

RUN FOR YOUR LIBRARY 5K (part of CTCC Community Days )

Run For Your Library 5K will have its first race at CTCC Community Days on Saturday July 9 at 8:30 AM. All walkers and runners are invited.

The Run For Your Library 5K Race, a part of CTCC Community Days, will be held Saturday July 9  at 8:30 a.m. at Cranberry's .

This is not the first 5K to be held on Community Days. Ten years ago, when Community Day was still held on July 4, the first Race for Virginia was held in the morning. Four years
ago, when Community Day moved to the second Saturday of July, the Race for
Virginia decided to keep their event on July 4. 

Many people missed having the 5K at the start of Saturday's Community Day, but no group more than the Cranberry Lions. 

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“There was no doubt that the attendance to the Lions Pancake Breakfast dropped both because of the change of dates and not having the runners of the 5K," said Andy Newell, president of the Lions. "But we were very happy with pancake sales in 2010 and we expect with the new Run for Your Library 5K, 2011 will be a record year.”

Two years ago, The Chamber Inc., the chamber of commerce for the North Hills and Cranberry area, decided to move its 5K to the Saturday of Community Days, creating the Chamber Chase 5K. This year, with the support of The Chamber, will be the first Run for Your Library 5K.

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“This event is about putting the spotlight on the situation of library in which they had state funding cuts of almost 40 percent in the last year," said event director Dan Storrs.

The Chamber agreed libraries are an important part of our communities and it members felt
this 5K could help give the needed attention and revenues to help all libraries. 

The concept is simple.

The runners, upon registration, select the library they want their proceeds to go to. This is open to any library in the state. When they register at the library, the library collects
their proceeds instantly.  If they register online  at www.CTCChest.org, we will send those proceeds to their library of choice. 

Each runner or walker receives a free Cranberry Lions Pancake breakfast, a 6-month membership to the Friends of the Library, and a variety of other gifts. The first
300 people to sign up for any of the levels also will get a shirt. 

 There will three levels at the event. The 5k walk or run is $20. The 1-mile Fun Run is $10 and the Supporter level is $10. Everyone who signs up will get a free Lions pancake breakfast. 

This year, we are accepting runners and walkers on the day of the event, but we encourage everyone to pre-register to assure they get a shirt.

We expect this to be a big race with a lot of runners and walkers, especially since this is the last year for The Race for Virginia.

Next year, we plan to make Run For Your Library the premier 5K of the summer to help fill the void left behind by the Race for Virginia.  The first Run for Your Library 5K race steps off at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, July 9 at k off of Route 19. 

The  5K run will be professionally chip timed and the overall winner will have his or her name inscribed on the “Orion Library Trophy” alongside the name of library he or she ran for. The trophy will displayed at the Cranberry Library for years to come. 

Which library will have their name on it first? We'll know soon.

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