The temperature when Scott and I arrived at
Parvin State Park in Pittsgrove, New Jersey was 41-degrees. I must say that it was a bit colder than I'm used to. The race was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. We arrived at around 8:15 a.m. We checked in at registration, got our race numbers, 332 for Scott and 357 for me, our long-sleeve technical t-shirts, and then scurried back to the car to warm up. Several runners wore costumes, so did a few dogs.
The race was a fundraiser for the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and South Jersey. Before the race, on-line registration closed with 157 participants registered. The beautiful weather and prize money ultimately brought out 236 runners and walkers to the event. I haven't run a race in recent memory where prize money was offered and maybe never for a 5K. The incentive seemed to work. The small field was loaded with speedsters.
The course may have been the prettiest 5K course that I've ever run, I'm sure the weather had a lot to do with that. The course, similar to the
Lake Spivey Road Race 15K course, runs clockwise around the lake to finish where it started. Runners started on the road before quickly darting off-road and onto a tight gravel trail, through some woods, and then onto a 14' to 16' wide asphalt path marked with white chalk arrows, orange tape, and tree roots painted for better visibility where needed. It was also a great introduction to some brief trail running. I'm ready for Ragnar now!
I posted the route because I couldn't find it posted before the run. I always like to get some sense of the course before a run. In this case Scott and I ran the first 150 yards of the course to just beyond the transition from road, to grass, to gravel trail. That was a good idea, no surprises as the front runner filtered to the lead.
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| 41-degrees at 8:23 a.m. |
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| The entrance to the parking lot |
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| Parvin State Park Office |
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| The Chick-fil-a cow in New Jersey (for my Jonesboro,GA friends) |
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| The park office overlooks Parvin Lake |
I wore a lot of clothes to stay warm before the race. My sweat pants and jacket came off before the race. I ran in tri-shorts, a long-sleeve shirt, gloves, and a beanie. It was too much! I could have done without the gloves and beanie.
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| Me dressed warm before the race |
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| Scott dressed less warm before the race |
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| Scott at the finish |
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| Spectators wait for runners to finish |
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| Two dads with lots of kids running around |
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| A runner in costume |
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| Food, water, and Scott |
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| Pretzels |
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| Looking west at one-half of the lake |
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| The view of the park office from the lake |
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| Scott talks to another runner as he waits for the results |
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| Waiting for the awards to be presented |
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| Runners in costume |
Prisoner outfits seemed to be the costume of choice for this group of runners.
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| Race bib number |
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| Bone Run long-sleeve technical t-shirt (back) |
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| Bone Run t-shirt (front) |
Scott finished in 40th place with a time of 22:00 for the 3.0 mile course. I finished 27th overall with a time of 20:11 indicated in the on-line results. I saw that the clock showed 20:25 as I passed and I'm pretty sure that a young lady named Gabby was right behind me at the finish. Somehow she ended up 4 places and 33-seconds behind me. I'm thinking that the paper tabs somehow got mixed up inside of the finishing chute. I got bumped up and she got bumped back. Had there been some chance that I would get an award I might have said something but I wasn't positive anyway. The young lady came in 3rd in her age-group.
As I said previously, the prize money bought our a super fast group of runners. Before the first turn, not 300 yards into the race, many of them were already 100 feet ahead of me. The overall winner finished in 14:59. The fastest guy over 50 years old, my age-group, finished in 15:49. That's ridiculously fast for an old fart.
Scott and I left without any bling!
The results were posted on-line at
RunSignUp.com.
Event pictures can be found on
Flickr.
Thanks for reading.
Update: Racing to the finish line. I love it when an event organizer takes pictures and posts them online for free. I think it helps promote the race, especially when the images are later posted on social media.
