PurpleStride Silicon Valley 5K
San Jose, CA
- 5K
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
PanCAN PurpleStride Silicon Valley will take place at Discovery Meadow this April! PurpPurpleStride is the ultimate walk to end pancreatic cancer. Wherever you are, you can help create that sea of purple to honor those we lost, celebrate survivors and raise funds for essential research like the PanCAN Early Detection … MORE
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More Like a Charity Walkathon
Event & Course Description: The PanCAN (Pancreatic Cancer Action Network) Purple Stride is a series of 50 events (in 2023) nationwide to raise money for PanCAN. The 2023 Silicon Valley … MORE
Event & Course Description: The PanCAN (Pancreatic Cancer Action Network) Purple Stride is a series of 50 events (in 2023) nationwide to raise money for PanCAN. The 2023 Silicon Valley Purple Stride started and finished in Discovery Meadow, a green space next to the Children’s Discovery Museum in Central San Jose. The course sort of loops and wanders around nearby business and residential neighborhoods (some nicely maintained ~100-year-old Victorians!).
Organization & Production: This is the part of this Rave I’m not going to like writing. I proportion my expectations – and therefore my Raves – to the nature of the event. I have different expectations for a volunteer organized charity event than I have for a professionally organized (with volunteer assistance) event.
Registration is a bit odd, it’s free. But if you want an event Tee you have to donate or raise donations of at least $50. There are “buttons” in the registration process by which one can donate $50 or (IIRC) $100, or etc. or some custom amount. The event schedule, location, course map, and other important information is on the event site. There was only event day packet pick-up. Now for the part that could sound like the running snob I’m not …
As run, the 2023 Silicon Valley Purple Stride was a community walk, not a walker-friendly running event. It was not timed, and there were no bibs or finisher’s medals. The streets were not cleared or blocked, even partially. Walkers had to stay on the sidewalk more or less, making it a fairly choke point for the first one-third mile. Arguably, I failed to understand the nature of the event, so mea goofa.
There were directional signs along the way, which would have been good, but at about the quarter mile point there was a right turn sign that should have been a straight-ahead arrow. This sent the walkers into .6-.7 mile loop back to the start. So when we came to where we would have turned toward the finish arch we went straight, back into the course, went straight where we had turned, and eventually somehow managed to net 2.5-2.7 miles. If only for the safety of the people walking, a correctly marked course is pretty essential, not a running-snob thingy.
T-Shirt: After the above you might think, “They had one?” They did, a brand name, very purple, cotton shirt with a sort of mosaic of footprints forming a heart shape plus the name and logo of the event. As event shirts go, it is very nice, and the very purple color makes it stand out. And standing out was the point of the shirt. The event planners wanted people walking the event in central San Jose to be SEEN … and for people to be curious enough to wander over to ask about the event.
Finish & Recovery Area: Discovery Meadow is a large green space, and there were various pavilions for check-in, event-day registration, in-person donations, several sponsors, a food and water table (a pretty decent variety), and a stage.
My Opinion of the Race: I suppose this Rave could be taken as critical, but except for the mis-marked course, the event was done fairly for what it was. The problem, if you will, was my expectation that it would be a community/charity 5K run/walk like so many I’ve done. To borrow from an obscure movie, ;), it was not the running event I sought. It would be snobbish of me to criticize the Purple Stride for being what it was instead of what I expected. While volunteering might be a possibility, I do not plan to be a walker in future Purple Strides.
No cancer is good or nice, but pancreatic cancer is among the nastiest. The symptoms it causes early on are so non-specific that early diagnosis – early enough to have a chance for treatment to be effective – is difficult and not common. At the Purple Stride they said that the survival rate is about 12%. Meanwhile, because the digestive system of the person with the cancer is not functioning properly (the pancreas produces digestive enzymes), the person slowly wastes away almost to skin and bones. That was my uncle Gary’s (Gerhardt) experience. He was 48 or 49 when he died, never seeing his sons graduate from high school, marry, or his grandchildren. Pancreatic cancer is a cancer deserving hate and research into diagnosis and treatment is well worthwhile.