Thousands of people painted downtown St. Louis pink at the 10th annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this Saturday morning.  The Komen Race is the largest St. Louis charity event.  The Komen Foundation expected 70,000 people to participate in the race.  The foundation raised $3.3 million this year to fight breast cancer. 

Three of the participants are pictured above, Anne, Joanie and Pat.  The girls took the train downtown.  I biked.  I turned into the Park just in front of a good size peleton.  I managed to stay in front of them all the way through the Park to Kingshighway.  I made the light on the yellow.  They didn’t.  The thrill of victory.  Later, on the Komen race course I overtook a golf cart.  The two guys driving it groaned as I passed them.  The agony of defeat.  I got 25 miles.

I found the girls, took their picture and bade them goodbye.  I then headed down to the Arch to see the flood.  On the way I passed Keiner Plaza where the fountain’s water had been dyed pink.  The flood water is up significantly from two weeks ago.  The flood gates are closed and so is the river front trail.  St. Louis is the confluence of three rivers, IL, MS and MO.  This year only the MI is in flood, so only the first dozen steps in front of the Arch are underwater.  In 1993 all three rivers were in flood, so all but eight steps were underwater.

On the way back I stopped to watch the race that now was in full swing.  I tried to capture the enormous numbers of people.  Anne did it best (see below) and this is only a third of the race course.