I love running and I do a lot of races but there is one race that I will always remember as the Hollywood race. The Hollywood race was when I was thirteen years old. My family is a huge running family. So my dad bought us tickets (Bibs) to run in the race. Before the race I and my family got to train for two months. We felt good. To train, I and my family run about 5 or 6 miles every day.

As we woke up at three o’clock the day of the race my dad was already downstairs cooking eggs for me. This has been a tradition for us since my older brother started running. Then we had the two hour drive all the way to Hollywood.

As we drove up I woke up and we were in the parking structure. As we got out of the car all you hear are racers talking about their previous races and how they did. As you look around the parking lot you see everyone in sweats and beanie’s mostly because it was sixty degrees and it was five o’clock in the morning. Then you ride up the stuttering escalator struggling to get all of the people up to the first floor.

Then there it is… Hollywood Blvd. and the Hard Rock Café. The name of the run is the Run Hard Rock. As we look around you see the sun is still down but dying to come up. You see the lights of Hollywood and the stars of all the people we know. As I get inspired by knowing all of these people stood where I stood my brother and I went for a mile run to warm up for the race.

Then it was time. It was seven o’clock and was time for the race to begin. As the DJ and the announcer booming above us he told us to get into the coral. He said to line up; fast people in the front and slower people in the back. As my mom and brother stayed in the back I walk all the way up to the front. I was thirty feet from the front. The announcer reminded us that this was a 5k so it was a 3.2 mile race. He said this course was a down and back course. Then as he starts to count down from ten I start to get ready…. Boom the gun rang and we were off.

As all five thousand of us started to begin our long three mile journey you start to see all of the building that you see on the movies. The Chinese Theater and the El Capitan Theater. As we were running what felt like five minutes you hear all of the bigger faster runners watches all go off. When there watches go off it means we got to a mile.

As I was running at a cruising speed I start to see the lead runner starting to come down the other side of the street I start to wonder. Am I that far away or am I really close to the turn around. As I started to speed up I saw it. The turnaround, were we all turning around to go back to the finish line. Then I start to speed up.
As we started to head back I was passing people one by one. Grown man by grown man. I felt like I was flying as fast as Usain bolt. I was running and looking into the other side of the street to see my brother and my mother I see them. I see them about a quarter of the mile down past the turnaround.

Finally I see it the finish line. It is filled with cheering fans and even better, my dad. As I really start to speed up I fined who I am going to sprint against at the very end. I start sprinting and so does he. I look at him and he is about six foot tall and he had huge caves. As we were sprinting he started to peel away. As I was running as fast as I could I couldn’t feel anything. I was running so fast and got closer and closer so the finish line. The crowed just getting louder and louder. Then I heard the announcer as he said “and here come Jason Lopez. Jason is thirteen years old and has now taken 1st place in his age division.”

I was so happy. The funniest part of the whole race was at the end when two girls wanted to take a picture of me. It kind of caught me off guard because no one ever asked me that before.

Later that day I got a medal for first place in my age division. I looked on the bored and saw I got twenty third out of five thousand people out of all. I got a time of twenty minutes and fifteen seconds. This was my favorite race because I got to walk and run in my heroes footsteps.

I still run that race today. I have run it three times now and this last time I got third in my age division and fifteenth overall. This last race my brother also ran the race and got third overall and got a glass trophy. I will always remember this race and never forget the Hollywood race.