It has been a full two weeks since I ran the 2018 Rat Race now that I find myself sitting down to write this report. It is a shorter distance race: a 20k that is made up of running two laps around a 10k trail loop. I decided to run it and register for it rather spontaneously as I was unaware of it until I saw an announcement that it had been rescheduled for a week after the originally planned date. I saw this announcement about a week and a half before the newly scheduled date. The timing of the newly scheduled date serendipitously worked out that on the morning of the race I would be driving right past Wells Mill County Park in Waretown, NJ where the race is held. I figured “why not run a 20k on my way to the in-laws’ house for Easter?”. I couldn’t come up with a good reason to say no to that. I thought racing a 20k on some new trails would be a great way for me to push myself harder on a mid-distance run than I normally do during a training run. The entry fee was pretty reasonable at $30 for day of registration. In addition to all this, I would get to explore some new trails that are only about a 40 minute drive for me from home.

This was a smaller race than most I’ve run, both in the number of runners and distance. Including all three distances offered (20k, 10K, and 5K) less than 70 runners showed up. This could be in part due to the race date being rescheduled. I’m not writing this as a positive or a negative, but simply reporting it. In many ways I prefer smaller events over ones with huge crowds: parking isn’t an issue, day of registration is no problem, and they usually provide a better opportunity to chat and hang out with other runners at the finish. However, even for this race being a pretty small gathering in general, the crowd at the finish line seemed especially small. I would guess that in about an hour’s time from when I finished until after I ate a sub and some cheese balls before leaving, there were at most around 40 people including race volunteers/staff, runners, and spectators. My only explanation for the severe lack of a lively finishing celebration is that the majority of runners were running the 5k and 10k distances and most of them finished while nearly all of us running the 20k were in the midst of our second loop. I’m guessing that the majority of them finished their distance, got their fill of the subs, and headed out before any of us made it to the finish. Maybe I’m griping a bit here where I shouldn’t be, but found it mostly surprising and also a little disappointing that so few stuck around to cheer in the 20k finishers.



