The 2005 Gulf Coast Relief Run

I truly believe there are pivotal moments that help define your future success. They often come out of nowhere. Most times, you don't even know they are important crossroads in your life. One of those moments happened to me and Pacers Running in 2005.

In the Summer of 2005, we owned the store for just over 2 years. We had grown to 2 stores pretty quickly–I spent a lot of my time in both the original Old Town Alexandria store and the "new store" in Clarendon. Back in 2005, I worked the floor a lot at both stores, and I got to know a number of the customers. I have so many great memories from that time of helping the running community, so many memorable customers… but probably none quite as memorable as James Carville.

Carville, who is from New Orleans, was in Alexandria in the late '90s and early 2000s working as a political strategist. He is an avid runner and was one of our best customers in the Alexandria Pacers location. He would come in frequently to buy shoes and gear. I was lucky enough to get to know him and offer running advice. When Carville came into the store, I always dropped what I was doing and went to help him. To him, I was affectingly known as the "Pacers Guy." A title I proudly adopted with Carville.??

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region the last week of August of 2005. I remember being fixated to the news about Katrina–it was devastating.??

The "moment" began in the Alexandria Pacers Running office. I was sitting there thinking, "We should do something to help." I'd been on an honorary committee with the Parkway Classic for a couple of years at that point, and I saw how much money that race could raise for the local Boys and Girls Club. What if Pacers put on a race and raised money for the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts???

In 5 minutes, I had made up my mind. I called Kathy at the law office she worked at–she's an executor, so if she was in for the idea, we were going to make it happen.?

"Let's put on a road race to raise money for Hurricane Katrina." I said, "I'll call James Carville and get his support so he can help get the city involved. What do you think?"?

"Alright, let's do it," she said. "Call Carville now."

I was pumped. I had Carville's office number from the many times we special ordered shoes for him. I had a good relationship with one of the guys who worked with him and thought maybe I could pitch it to his assistant and get Carville to call me back. I immediately called Carville's office.

"This is James!" the voice on the other end said… WHAT? I wasn't ready to pitch Carville himself! I was geared up to pitch this grand idea to his assistant, get their buy-in so THEY could pitch it to Carville. Sweating bullets, I knew I had a 10-second window with this very busy, famous political figure.?

"James, this is the Pacers Guy. We would like to put on a race in Alexandria for Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts. I need your help to get the city involved and to promote the event. Can you help?"

There was a pause that felt like an eternity–and I thought to myself, "I blew it. He isn't into the idea." But then he responded, "Let's do it in 2 weeks. I'll call the Mayor's office." And he hung up the phone. In that moment, we had a race. Twenty minutes prior, the idea didn't even exist. I was sky high.

"Two weeks!? Wow. Wow. Wow." was Kathy's response when I immediately called her back. Later that day, the special events office in Alexandria gave the Pacers store a call. "Sounds like we are putting on a race on Saturday, Sept 17th," they said. Alexandria was in too. Wow. Wow. Wow was right.

The next 2 weeks were a blur. Not much sleep. A crash course into how to put on a race. Mike Gugat, who worked at Mizuno at the time, got Mizuno and Roll Call to sponsor. The City of Alexandria partnered with us to help set things up for Oronoco Bay Park. The entire Pacers team, including my brother Brian and manager Brian Collins, worked double time. My parents were in charge of race ops, and Kathy was the Race Director to make it all go.

We were hoping for 500 people on race day, but I could feel the momentum that it might be more than that the week before the event. Carville was on CNN almost daily, and he promoted the event a number of times on the national broadcast he was on. The support continued to grow.

On the day of the race, we had already reached our goal with 500-plus runners signed up. It was a hot day, so we weren't sure if we could expect more. We were wrong.?

Many more showed up. We were blown away by the solidarity the running community showed. We had 3,000+ runners show up. We ran out of race bibs. We ran out of water. The course was overwhelmed. I remember very little from race day, but I remember my mom grabbing five Pacers employees, going to the local Giant, and buying every bottle of water they had. Kathy was in charge of registration, we ran out of numbers, and a woman approached her, saying, "Here is $100. I don't need a race number. I just want to help."

The race finished, and my Dad was in charge of the money. He put all the cash from the runners in a shopping bag and took that bag back to the store, where he locked himself in the office to count it. We walked in a couple of hours after the race and saw him sitting in a pile of money that he had tallied.?

We had raised $125,000 that day.?

We all cried.?

It was a moment, a series of moments, I'll never forget.

We did a reception with the City of Alexandria, Carville, and the Race Committee later in the month. I asked Carville, "Why did you want to do the race in 2 weeks? Why not wait until everyone could prepare more?"

"The longer you wait, the less impact you make," he said, "There will be other very worthy causes to support, and we wanted to make the most impact while Katrina was on everyone's mind."

I then asked, "Why did you answer the phone that day when I called?"

"I was waiting on a call from Bill Clinton, and I thought it was the former president on the line when you called."