The usually quiet and peaceful Kiwanis Park in south Tempe welcomed several hundred runners who came to take part in the Mustache Dache 5K run on a sunny Saturday morning.
The event brought together a large group of families with mustached babies in strollers, friends in tutus and children in red superhero capes who ran along the gleaming lake.
While the event seemed fun and light-hearted at first glance, the Mustache Dache was created to raise awareness about men’s health issues, especially prostate and testicular cancer.
Chris Skaggs, 35, the captain of a team that dressed up like elves, said the group hosts a lot of events devoted to men’s health issues for the past four years.
Skaggs, a testicular cancer survivor, said events that bring men’s attention to potential health problems and motivate them to visit a doctor are essential to preventing and combatting the disease.
“Men are very stubborn, they don’t want go to the doctor, and early detection is so paramount with cancer, “ he said. “So raising awareness and making sure people go to the doctor to get checked is … extremely important.”
Race Director Jillian Becker said a percentage of the registration fees and merchandise sales will go to help the Movember Foundation that aims to fight prostate and testicular cancer.
“(We aim to) raise awareness, raise funds and also get people out and active in their community, “ Becker said. “All that ties together and makes it a really fun day.”
Finance and supply chain management senior Sam Levine came to the race with three of his friends, who are ASU alumni. He said he’s been growing facial hair since the beginning of November to support men’s health awareness and is not planning to get rid of it soon.
“A mustache is something I’ve always wanted to have,” Levine said. “It gave me a chance to try it out and I think it’s just a really fun way to support the cause.“
The Brewster family came to Phoenix from Wisconsin for the long Thanksgiving weekend to visit their older daughter, sales marketing senior Taylor Brewster, and to bring their younger daughter, Chandler, to apply to ASU.
All four members of the family, wearing whimsically painted or tattooed mustaches, said they decided to participate in the run because they were looking for a fun way to spend a family weekend together.
“I like that everybody can have a mustache,” Gregg Brewster said. “I love some of the mustaches out there but mine was funky. I think I may grow one.”
Psychology junior Anne Dewey and ASU alumna Samantha Polito said they spent four hours making their fluffy blue tutus with mustache print.
Both work in a medical field and know that prostate cancer awareness is very important, they said.
“I always love doing runs that support health care, especially men’s health,” Dewey said. “As one of the nurses said yesterday, men don’t go to the doctors, so we do whatever we can do to motivate them.”
Reach the reporter at kmaryaso@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @KseniaMaryasova
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