Chillin' With ... Karen Brown: Pounding the pavement at women's triathlon

A WARM, MUGGY day of campaigning nearly starts off badly.

Karen Brown, the Republican nominee for mayor, is ready to leave her South Philly block when her righthand man, Rick Modglin, goes to dump a cup of lemonade on the street by the car.

Don't do it, Brown warns. The drink will draw flies and then the ire of Gracie, the woman who keeps clean the block of tidy two-story rowhouses. Most of them have her campaign poster in their windows. All politics are local.

Brown and a few volunteers in three cars head to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, where the fifth annual SheROX Triathlon is under way. She spent the weekend buying all the rally towels she could find - about 1,000 - and having them printed with her name and campaign website.

Nobody manning the barricades to keep cars away from the race yesterday knows anything about Brown or her rally towels.

But Modglin presses forward until the black Cadillac with dark, tinted windows gets through.

Brown, in a light-gray suit, purple top and flats, hops out and starts shaking hands.

"Hi, I'm Karen Brown, a woman running for mayor," she says to the first of what seems like 1,000 people at the race, which features more than 1,500 female competitors. Brown arrives just as Kenna Moran, a Philadelphia teacher, crosses the finish line first, getting the first towel.

Race organizers ask Brown to stop with the towels, explaining that city officials concerned they will be discarded on the ground have threatened to issue fines.

Brown moves away from the finish line, but women from the race keep asking for towels. What is she to do? Say no? No chance.

Brown is looking for voters. But she keeps getting distracted by dogs. They are everywhere, leashed to husbands and children waiting for wives and mothers to cross the finish line. Brown pets each one, asks about names.

Ready for a break, Brown heads to Darling's Diner in Northern Liberties, a favorite campaigning spot. As she leaves, the volunteers look around. They see no rally towels on the ground.

- Chris Brennan