• Salisbury,
    Massachusetts,
    United States
  • June
  • Other
  • Road Race
  • Event Website

Brendan

Amesbury, Massachusetts, United States
15 9
2016
"A Family "not so" Fun Run 1 Miler"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
Brendan 's thoughts:

A very popular statement that most have heard is this

“There is a first for everything!”
Well, this weekend there was a first for me and for my 8 year old daughter! A family fun run at the Seacoast running festival in Salisbury, Mass. It took place on Saturday night (after some serious rain) and was run on the Salisbury Beach, starting from the center of town so to speak. Since this is my first family fun run, I really don’t have anything to compare it to so to speak (other than all the other races I have run outside of this category) so keep that in mind when reading this review.

As for this being my daughters first race, I will write up another post on that later this week because that was just cool on so many levels! In the meantime, let’s focus on the race today. The Family Fun run 1 mile was free and one could purchase a shirt for $5 beforehand when registering (I got 2). It mentioned on their site or on an email that food and prizes were to follow the race (I saw hot dogs and hamburgers but perhaps that was in relation to the half) but I did not have really anything else in terms of information. The race map was posted only a few days before it seems and I did not realize it was on sand till I got there on Saturday night!

In terms of the “pregame” we were able to get our numbers near the starting line though the site said to go to Joe’s Playland (they had no idea when we asked). As for pickup of the shirts, they were not available because something was printed incorrectly on them. They also had me down for one shirt when I had in fact ordered two! They gave us a water bottle with “Watetown Savings” on it and a safety kit – would have liked to have some mention of the race but my daughter was happy which I guess is all thst counts!

The race had about 50 people I think all told. Everyone lined up and we ran down the beach. Now, if it had not rained before, this would have been very hard given the typical soft sand of this beach. That was not the case fortunately and we jumped into some tire tracks and stayed in those till the turnaround point .5 miles away. On the way back, we hit the bottom of the beach and that made it much easier for both of us (mostly me) to finish strong. I think my daughter came in around 5th or so but I have not been able to find the race times anywhere so I cannot confirm.

The post race had a water bottle at the finish line and our bib got my daughter a free ice cream at Joes and a beer for me at the deck. A far cry from what I expected. Also there were no medals or anything for the kids which disappointed me the most.

So what is my grade for this race? D+ at best. It was not something I will sign up for again. It seemed to be a bother to those managing the event and when interacting with the kids, who were running the race, it was like “hey kid do you want a water bottle (in a half hearted tone).” Now , I can speak for the other races that were run this past weekend as part of the festivities but if they were run like this, they are not going to get many runners to return. Count me as one of them.

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