Photo by Her Bad Mother

We just heard the amazingly fantastic news that Tanner and his mom will be at the BlogHer 2010 conference this year!

If you’ve never heard of Tanner, he’s the nephew of beloved blogger and fellow Shredheads supporter Catherine Connors (Her Bad Mother) who is battling Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy.

Along with some of our fellow Shredheads, we created Tutus for Tanner, an initiative encouraging people to wear a tutu in Tanner’s honor when they walk or run any race this year.

The response has been amazing, and in fact, the BlogHer 5K has teamed up with us for this year’s fun run!

And now, we’ll all get to meet Tanner and his mom (who is an amazing woman and runner)! If you’re attending BlogHer this year, think about running or walking in one of the 5K runs. And if you’re not, please consider wearing a tutu at your next run or race – or just at the grocery store!

For more details about Tutus for Tanner, check out our archives. And to read Tanner’s story, hop over to Her Bad Mother. Bring the tissues.

You can still donate by visiting their Muscular Dystrophy fundraiser page here!

Now on to the race.  The concept of the Skirt Chaser was that the women started 3 minutes ahead of the men.  We stood around freezing in an oddly cold torrential downpour while the race was delayed for lightning, then at 5:15 the women lined up and took off to some Black Eyed Peas song.  Then it was the men’s turn.

It felt like a challenge in the Bachelorette, with way too much testosterone.  I felt like the guys were all trying to be manlier than the next. In the crowd there was talk of how cavemen caught their women by bonking them with clubs.  There was the playing of Motley Crue (not Girls Girls Girls though, duh!).  There was burping, and scratching, and chest thumping.  There was much manliness to be found.  5:18 came and I’ve never been part of a faster 5K start in my life.  Really, it was so crazy I almost started laughing.

Then, at 0.15 miles, we reached the first hill.

The numbers can’t show how impossibly difficult it was.  150 foot climb over 1/2 mile, a 40 foot climb over 1/4 mile, then 20 feet over 0.1 miles.  After a fairly long downhill stretch, we ended up with a lot of up and down sections and it just never got easy.  The overall elevation change for the course were:

• 1 total mile of climb, 255 feet
• 1.1 total miles of flat
• 1 total mile of drop, 255 feet

I ended up finishing in 25:38, which I’m happy with considering the challenging course.  And it’s the first 5K I’ve run where I actually feel like I gave 100%, and had nothing left at the end.

Emily finished shortly after I did, followed by Elle.  I was really proud to watch Beth and Adam finish, because despite the terrible course they both finished their FIRST 5Ks running!  What a great course to start with…BLEAH!

But I decided, once I could feel my extremities, that it was a fun race to have run.  It was great running with friends.  It was great running in the rain.  It was great helping them raise some money to help fight Muscular Dystrophy.  And it was great to have kicked Emily’s butt!  A-boo-yah!  LOL

The Skirt Chaser 5K is on June 5th – it’s a clever idea where the women get a 3 minute head start, and the men (that would be me) try to catch them.  Sounds fun, right?  Well, if the race alone isn’t enough to get you there, Beth and Elle are doing something really amazing…organizing a Tutus for Tanner fundraiser for it!

From her post:

Elle and I are offering mini tutus for each $15 donation. I’m working on a couple prizes that we can raffle off to all donators. So we hope that you’ll click on over to the donation page and put a couple bucks towards a good cause.

You can check out her post here, and go straight to the donation page here.

While I won’t be wearing a tutu (sorry), I was already going to run in that race…so now I can make a donation too, and hopefully Beth and Elle will be willing to make a mini tutu for my 5yo daughter!

If you live in the Pittsburgh area (or want to travel there), let me know…it would be fun to meet a few people while I’m there!

We haven’t seen a lot of activity with that, but someone (hi Elle!) emailed about it, so I’d like to resurrect it, especially now that the weather is nice.  To quote from Kristen’s post:

If you’re planning on running a race this year (5K, 10K, Half Marathon, Marathon, or whatever other distances exist), then agree to wear a tutu when you do, in honor of Tanner.

Yes, you might look a little silly, but some might say running just for the heck of it is a little silly.

The best part is that tutus are super easy to make (I used these make your own tutu instructions from Design Mom to make mine) and if that’s not your thing, then well, they’re easy to buy too.

If you’re interested in participating, just email your name, link (if applicable), and race information (location not necessary unless you want to share – but tell us the distance or the name if there is one – plus a link too if you like) to theshredheads[at]gmail[dot]com with “TUTUS FOR TANNER” in the subject and we’ll link everyone up by date/month.

And if you don’t have a race yet, just email us whenever you sign up for one. And if you’re looking for help with your 5K Training (or even 10K and Half Marathon training), well, you’ve come to the right place.

So hooray for tutus. And hooray for Tanner. If ever you needed the motivation to get off your butt and run, what a better combination?

If, in addition to wearing a tutu, you’d like to make a donation in honor of Tanner, Catherine and her family support Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (there’s a “Donate” button near the upper right of the screen).

If you’re running a race in a tutu, let us know!  Send us pics, blog links, whatever you’d like and we’d love to share it with others!