Captain Chad Allen Reed Memorial 5K Run in Cross City

A long blog article title this is, but necessary. Yesterday morning I chose to get in my June public running race (there aren’t very many available to choose from) by going west about fifty miles to the interesting little town of Cross City, Florida. More about what makes it interesting in upcoming articles. But back to the race and its reason for being…

On January 14 of this year, police captain Chad Allen Reed was gunned down and killed by a suspected murderer while on duty. He left his wife and young children behind, as well as a bereaved community comprising two counties: Dixie, where he worked, and Taylor, where he grew up. Reed had a heart for the poor, as he had been working on a project to dig a well that would provide fresh water to some poverty-stricken residents. His death interrupted his efforts only temporarily: this race’s main goal was to raise the money to make Reed’s Samaritan dream a reality. At the opening ceremony before the race, wreaths were symbolically laid for Reed and three other recently-fallen police officers. Reed’s children were accorded the honor of symbolically starting the race.

The heat was stifling on race morning, with temperatures rising from 76 at sunrise to nearly 90 by 11 am. The humidity was horrific as well. I was surprised to see that the race planners had scheduled the race to start at 10, which would guarantee pretty hot, sticky conditions for the runners. But since I have been training for weeks under these conditions, I personally had no issues with that decision.

When the race started (just outside Dixie County High School), I was running well, at a good pace. Or that’s what I thought at first, until a flood of other runners practically sprinted past me as if this were more like a single lap around the high school track. But I kept to my pace, while accepting the first water bottle offered to me and making regular short pauses to swig some along the way. After the initial stretch of the run, I began to pass one tired and overheated runner after another. It got to be pretty funny, as I was getting stronger the more grueling the race became for others. I finally finished it at 23:23, which was my second highest time for a five kilometer run. I was very satisfied with the outcome, although it was a little disconcerting to discover that the race’s finish line was in a different location from the start, about a half-mile away from my car at the school. A police volunteer offered me a ride back, but I said “What the heck” and walked/ran back.

I had to go to work back in Gainesville early that afternoon, so I couldn’t hang around for the usually delayed and drawn-out awards process. Maybe I would have won something, maybe not. But I enjoyed the racing experience, which was the whole point of going there in the first place.

I had first thought, upon discovering that Cross City of all places was hosting a race, how cool! But the reason for it, of course, was this tragic loss of a policeman’s life; I would have preferred instead to never have gone to Cross City and have Chad Reed still around to brighten up his community and family. So sad.