- Name: Jessica W.
- Event details (parking, facilities, vendors, schwag etc):
Parking: On Site. For the current size of the race, the parking lot is sufficient, but the lot fills quickly.
Registration/Check-in: This was a little chaotic last, but this year there were a couple changes.
1) Someone directed you to one place if you were preregistered and another place if you were registering. Last year it was a bit of a free-for-all.
2) Once you received your bib (and you were under bib 600) you picked up your shirt. Last year it was one table with 4 people running around. This year there was a table for S, M shirts and another table for L, XL shirts.Schwag: First 600 registrants received a snazzy long sleeved tech shirt. Anyone over 600 would be entered into a lottery for an unknown number of shirts.
Freebies: Food in the form of bagels, bananas, prepackaged crackers and peanut butter, hot dogs, and clam chowdah. Oh…and water!
- Race details (course, obstacles, difficulty etc):
A 5 mile (or 2 mile fun run), fairly flat course with not a shred of pavement running!
The starting line was moved from 2011 so the 2 mile run/walkers weren’t mixed in. The 5 milers started near bib pickup – and I had a feeling we’d be ending here too. The horn (ok, so it was a musical sound from the bullhorn) sent us on our way. We went down a fairly long yet slight downgrade and off into the bogs. We zigged, we zagged, we ran along side the railroad track (It was Edaville Railroad after all. If you aren’t familiar check them out!) all the while we were mostly on a sandy trail with some gravel mixed in here and there – also some clumps of grass, but really mostly a good, packed sandy trail. I was in my glory! I absolutely love off-roadin’ when it comes to running.
We had no expectations to stay together but Sara Oberdorf and I paced together (I think we actually brought up the rear with respect to the Spahtens, but, hey, we had goals and we killed them!). We chatted, we laughed, we watched people walk/jog/walk/jog and decided who we’d make a move on during that last leg. (Hey, I said it was a flat track, you have to do something to keep it interesting in addition to taking in all the really awesome cranberry bogs!) Before we knew it we were at the last stretch, running up that hill we started off coming down. I marked my prey, said so long to Sara (we had agreed to part ways at the end to run out our last big of push at our very own paces), and took off up the hill passing my victim with ease and finishing within my goal time!
Our own Tommy Dorr finished 4th in his age bracket Jeff Wohlen PR’d. I’m not sure how Jenn Taddeo, Kandice Fogarty, and Kerry Tellier did but they all were waiting at the end for Sara and myself to finish! Good showing everyone!!! We also had the pleasure of meeting Tommy’s friend PJ. I think we need to pull him into our world, he seems more than willing 🙂
I plan to do this yearly. It’s a great run and the organizers/volunteers are nice. I was even recognized by one of the organizers from all my Facebook chatter!
