Every year a nearby food bank hosts a 5k almost in our backyard. Blessings of Hope has a huge yard sale, auction, food vendors, activities for kids, and of course a 5k race in beautiful Lancaster County. The company is predominantly Mennonite so it attracts the local Amish and Mennonite community at large. Turn out is always HUGE. Parking is an issue, FYI.

This year the 5k drew a much larger crowd as well. The course was the same as the previous year, a nice easy run on the back roads of Amish Country. There is a slight incline, at the very start, but for the most part, it’s nothing too crazy and very runner friendly.

At the very beginning, I noticed a lot of kids hanging around the starting line- in fact, there were a lot of kids and I thought how fun it will be to blow past them at the halfway mark. The announcer’s voice boomed over the handheld speaker as she yelled “GO!” and we were off. Truth be told: those Amish kids took off and I didn’t see a single one after that. Even though my first mile was complete in 7 minutes, and my second mile at 7:20, those kids were fast and long gone.

The course was beautiful as always, and the atmosphere and iCare event was a lovely experience. Even though I hit a few PRs, fastest mile (7:11), fastest 2 miles (14:31), I still finished 25th overall. I placed 3rd in my age group and received a fidget spinner medal- all-in-all, it was pretty fun.

Last year I ran a lot slower, with an average of 9:00 min/miles and placed 2nd in my age group. So this year I’d say the number of competitors was a lot higher and the skill levels were just as high to match. This is a fast course and we saw some really fast times! Looking forward to next year!

Finish time 24:26.3 Average Pace: 7:50 min/mile

Before we start, can I tell you how much I love this race? The Hot Chocolate 15k is just an awesome race all around. The only complaint is finding a parking spot around the city, but hey, par for the course. This year I hit another PR, beating my previous runtime by around 8 minutes. I felt strong the entire race, and get this – NO MUSIC. I decided to ditch the headphones and listen to myself breath, and it was an amazing experience.

Running without music really heightened my other senses and I felt like I was sincerely listening to my body. It also afforded me a chance to really take in my surroundings and hear what was going on around me. Life can be pretty crazy, and it’s almost sad to say this, but you never know what’s going to happen at an event like this. There were over 5,000 participants in the 15K, plus spectators, staff, and volunteers – it was crazy busy! So being alert and knowing my surroundings was extremely comforting. Another comforting sight was seeing the sheer amount of awesome volunteers, police, fire, ems, and sanitation crews. Major kudos to the men and women of the Philadelphia Law Enforcement, First Responder, and Public Works Departments.

The first half of the race takes you from the Philadelphia Museum of Art toward Center City and then loops you back around to cross over the Susquehanna into Fairmount Park. You run up Martin Luther King Drive and catch the wonderful sights of Boathouse Row. It’s an amazing sight and such a beautiful landscape. The Philadephia Hot Chocolate Run is an Out-and-Back Course, so once you run the entire length of the Park, you turn around and come right back.

I didn’t carry much on me during this year’s race, last year I carried Sport Beans and two water bottles with Nuun in them, this year a single Stinger Gel Flask and one Orangic Honey Stinger Waffle was just enough. Heck, I even forgot to eat the waffle until the very end! The entire race was enjoyable, it wasn’t until mile 8 that I noticed some discomfort. I’m not really sure what triggered it, but I decided to check my heart rate at mile 8 and noticed I was at my max threshold (red area for those Garmin users). Maybe it was a lack of glucose in my bloodstream, but I just felt a little off. I decided to walk for 1 min, and see if my heart rate would drop back to my Anaerobic zone (Orange) or if I could manage to calm myself my Aerobic zone (Green). I chugged the rest of my gel flask and nabbed a Nuun water from the last aid station – I checked my watch and saw that I had managed to bring my heart rate into a comfortable zone, so I picked the pace back up. I finished feeling pretty good with my average pace around 9:30 min/mile. Could I have gone faster? Maybe, but let’s save that for next year!

It’s that time of the year again! When the grass begins to grow, the cider flows like water, and over a thousand people attempt the run the Hard Cider Run 5K in Gettysburg, PA. This year we signed up for year 3 of running the Hard Cider Run at Hauser Estate Winery, home of Jack’s Hard Cider, in Biglerville, Pennsylvania (Gettysburg). This is usually our favorite race, mostly because its in our favorite town, and also the course is just downright fun. However, this year was a little different.

I will say, the PROs of running this race: Nice Shirts and Medals, the event hosted by Hauser Estate gets better every year with entertainment and food trucks, Race photos are typically posted within a few days, and the Jack’s Hard Cider is always welcome. We’ve signed up every year for the last 3 years, so obviously we really enjoy this race, but I think after this year we’re going to take a break.

Side note: look at the first year we ran the race until now, Transformation Tuesday!

And here’s why:

First off, when you really enjoy something, it’s easy to over do it. And some times too much of a thing can be a bad thing, so in an effort to keep our love affair with the Hard Cider Run, we’re going to take a back seat for a year or two. That is the main reason we are going to sit the next year out. That being said, this year’s event didn’t seem as streamlined as previous events, and the overall experience was soured a little by that.

This year over 1,800 people signed up! Like most races, this was broken up into corrals for different skill levels / running pace. Since we treat this as a fun run, we sign up for the third wave, which is around the 10:30 min/mile pace (run/jog) corral. In previous years, there was a 10 min break between corrals, which kept the field traffic to a minimum – this year, the break was about 3 minutes. The course was changed from the previous years and rather than a gradual hill to start, the course immediately sent you into a bottleneck, and then an insanely steep hill. There was a lot of heavy huffing and puffing as people attempted to chug up the hill. Since the corrals were released so quickly, we did a lot of stopping this year due to traffic jams. So needless to say, the race didn’t have a very graceful start, and it seemed like the traffic continued throughout the race. By the way, speaking of people, race photos – this sums up my race experience (lost in the crowd), there were literally 2 pictures of me in the all race photos, and I’m buried in a sea of people. Haha.

Also, new runners, it’s great to see so many people participate in this event – that ensures it will be around for years to come – but there are some general house keeping rules they should have announced to each corral. If for some reason you are going to stop or walk, please step to the right side and let runners pass on the left. Also, in tight areas (I know this hinders social time) but please don’t walk side-by-side.

Anyway, it’s not you Hard Cider Run, it’s us – we don’t ruin wanna a good thing. In fact, after re-reading this I feel like I’m coming across as complaining and whining jerk. Please know I love this race and we’ll be back – just not next year.

For the second year in a row we braved the single digit temperatures and as a family ran the US Road Running New Years Day 5K in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was a beautiful day for a run, and we weren’t the only crazies that decided to ring in the new year with a run along the Susquehanna River.

There is no race expo, packet pick-up is the morning of the race. The shirts are a generic US Road Running tech shirt with their logo - not race specific. There is a finishers medal for all entrants, good quality and fairly unique.

The course begins at the Harrisburg Senators stadium on City Island, crosses over the river and traverses along a flat pathway along the Susquehanna. The start/ finish line was on City Island and was free of snow, however, once you crossed the river and hit the footpath, you were greeted with snow covered trails. The race is an out and back course, so applying some common sense is needed to manage the traffice patterns.

The crowd wasn’t as heavy as last year’s, I’m assuming the cold temps drove people away- but there was a good crowd none-the-less. The cold weather was a benefit in regard to the snow covered trails- the temps kept the snow powdery and prevented it from turning to slush. The air was brisk, but once the race began, the cold air was refreshing and invigorating.

The kids complained the entire time- it was glorious.
Family Finish Time: 41:12

We'll run this race again, fairly inexpensive, views are wonderful.