SAUSAGE RACE!

If you are not from Wisconsin, or if you have never been to a Brewers game, you probably are not familiar with the "World Famous" Racing Sausages. Every home Brewers game between the 6th and 7th innings, people dressed as enormous sausages (Chorizo, Polish, Italian, Hot Dog, and my personal favorite - the Bratwurst) race around the infield dirt and everyone goes nuts. It is delightfully silly and very Wisconsin.

For the last 13 years, there has been an event at Miller Park that I have failed to attend, a 5K called the Miller Park Sausage Race 5K. This year was the magic year that I made it in before it sold out. It was great. Granted, it was very hot (and consequently, I ran by far my slowest ever chip-timed 5k. Ugh). Running on black asphalt in July without shade is bound to be hot. However, during the Sausage Race 5K, you get to run IN THE STADIUM. I did not know this would happen, and then all of a sudden, I was INSIDE MILLER PARK! While the training montage from Rocky I played on the jumbotron. It is super dorky. It is also really, really, really neat and awesome.

One thing I did not realize about the Sausage Race 5K is that all 5 racing sausages run the whole race in costume. That, my friends, is hardcore. And that is only one reason of many the racing sausages are better than that copycat thing in Washington DC, the racing presidents of Mount Rushmore. Sausages are where it's at.

It was slightly unfortunate that my body was not processing water properly or quickly enough today (I'm out of running shape due to some knee issues from half-marathon training last year, and consequently I haven't been running as much as I'd like this year), because with your registration you not only get a ticket voucher for a Brewers game, but you also get free hot dogs and beer. Sadly, I am a vegetarian and I could not drink the beer, because I was feeling nauseous after a measly little 5k because the water I drank on the course didn't actually get absorbed by my body and was sloshing around in my tummy instead. Bad place for it. And I was really looking forward to the beer. Next year.

In short, there is a three-mile race run by 3000 people and 5 sausages, through a Major League Baseball stadium, I ran it, and it is great. And there is free beer at the end.

I love being from Wisconsin.

Go Bratwurst!