Sarah Cate: Creative

Growing up, I hated two things: running, and my hometown.

Running, for obvious reasons, and my hometown because what teenager doesn’t dream of getting out and never coming back?

Over the last four years, though, my opinion on both those things has changed. I absolutely adore St. Pete, my Sunshine City, and all that it’s been to me. And I now officially consider myself a runner, having just run my first 10K this past Saturday.

A few months back, the St. Pete Running Company put out a call on Instagram looking for a designer to create some merch for St. Pete RunFest. I was already signed up for the 10K, and had done the 5K last year as my first ever long run, so RunFest holds a dear place in my heart. I responded to their call, and was honored to get to partner with them to make a series of 4 designs, all of which I’ll be sharing in the following posts.

This one though? This was my favorite.

St. Petersburg, Florida is known as the Sunshine City – but for this, I knew I wanted to play around with that and have a design with the Runshine City.

I used the colors of the St. Pete flag, but instead of using the standard pelican that appears in the flag, I used a more intricate one that a designer had made for RunFest in years past.

I will never forget the feeling of first walking into SPRC’s tent at the expo and getting to pick up the designs I’d created (I also made the Believe Achieve crop here – more on that later). In truth, I teared up a little getting to run my hands over these.

The next day, I wore this tank as I ran all 6.2 miles around downtown St. Pete, and my dad wore the shirt version as part of my cheer squad. I can’t think of any better way to show my love for this city that’s raised me, both as a person and as a runner.

One more thing – after I had the designs in hand, I remembered a picture I’d taken back in the summer of 2021, where someone had taken chalk to one of the storm drains downtown and colored the flag on it. I’d forgotten about this picture, but I suppose inspiration will lodge itself into our minds until it finds the right time to come back out again.