The Earth Day Half Marathon & 5K has quickly become one of CNY’s most looked forward to springtime races! Along with some of the best swag out there, all participants get a tree to plant! Runners love the connection to the countryside setting. As you run along the low-traffic country …
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The Earth Day Half Marathon & 5K has quickly become one of CNY’s most looked forward to springtime races! Along with some of the best swag out there, all participants get a tree to plant! Runners love the connection to the countryside setting. As you run along the low-traffic country roads, you’ll be rewarded with amazing views of rolling farmland, pastures with cows and horses and the lookout at Beaver Lake. The race start/finish and post-race fest are at the Emmi Farm’s Greenhouse with lots of parking, conveniently nearby- within walking distance.
The half marathon is mostly a loop course on low-traffic, country roads with many friendly neighbors that come out to cheer you on! The course is described as having rolling hills with a couple good ones between Mile 8/9. The Half Marathon Relay is a 2 person relay with each member of the team running 6.55 miles (1/4 marathon). The 5K is an out & back along two fairly flat stretches of country road.
The Earth Day Half Marathon, Relay & 5K event benefits the Baldwinsville Meals on Wheels, the Volunteer Center and other local not for profit groups.
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Run it for the shirt!
This is an annual Earth Day themed half marathon and 5K produced by Willow Running in Baldwinsville, NY. Baldwinsville is about 20 minutes west of Syracuse and a little over … MORE
This is an annual Earth Day themed half marathon and 5K produced by Willow Running in Baldwinsville, NY. Baldwinsville is about 20 minutes west of Syracuse and a little over an hour from Rochester. I did the 5K because I was on-call this weekend and ran a 50K last weekend so wanted to take it easy. I really appreciated that they offered packet pick-up not just in Syracuse but also in Rochester and Utica. I was able to pick up my packet at a local Rochester running store Thursday evening. The packet included a bib which has a timing chip since this is chip timed which I liked since I’ve had issues with the manual timing at Willow Running’s event. The packet also includes the most amazing race shirt I have ever seen. I am not sure if it is amazingly good or amazingly bad but it is amazing. It is a long sleeved tie-dyed tech shirt. Its not just tie dyed it also has runners, trees, fish, birds, frogs and other nature images interspersed with the tie-dye design along with the race name and location. It didn’t have date so it may be the same shirt every year but who couldn’t use more obnoxious tie dyed tech shirts. It is a very nice quality, detailed shirt down to having thumb holes. It is by far the wackiest and most creative race shirt I have and I must have gotten close to 100 race shirts by now so that’s saying something. I both love it and hate it at the same time. It is nice quality so I will definitely wear it running and will also wear it to the next Phish concert I go to if concerts ever happen again. The race started at Emmi’s Farm Market and there was a large parking area. There was also day of packet pick-up if you couldn’t get it before the race. The half marathon had a wave start from 7:45 to 8:15. Then the half marathon relay went at 8:20 and the 5K had a slow mass start at 8:30. I did not think the 5K was social distanced enough. There was almost 350 5Kers. I feel like they should have split us into waves or something. It was supposed to be a gradual mass start and the starting corral was small so not everyone left at once but it was much more crowded than other races. This is why I took a sneaker away from production. Kudos to the runners though as I didn’t see a single runner not wearing a mask at the start line and I only saw a handful out of hundreds not wearing it properly. The course was pretty nice. it was an out and back through some farmland. It wasn’t spectacular (although maybe I am spoiled by the views last weekend) but it was a pretty and pleasant place for a run. The course was as flat as possible for the area. There was one small hill at the turnaround and two kind of bumps. Total elevation was 76 ft about half that of the Pi day race I did here last month. I didn’t even think about walking and I have a very low threshold to power walk hills so that tells you how easy the “hills” were. It’s a somewhat hilly area so I’m assuming the half has some rolling hills but they appeared to make the courses as flat as possible for the area. I did think the course was a little congested with the mass start. It was actually kind of nice as it felt normal but we aren’t there yet with the pandemic and it should have been more spaced out. Also I forgot how annoying it is to weave around people walking in groups of two to three. I still enjoyed the race and I don’t think passing people while running outside is very high risk but it could have been safer. There is a nice finish arch and a festive finish area. My time was pretty good considering I ran a 50K last weekend. You got your medal which is nice and spins but my first medal broke so I had to get a replacement. I’d rather have a non-spinning medal that doesn’t break. The broken medal is why I took a sneaker away from swag but the shirt is so epic I almost gave the swag 5 stars even with the broken medal. There was lots of finish line food: cookies, bananas, chocolate milk, wraps, and chips. Along with a booth with monster energy drinks and a booth with beer (but no beer for me since I don’t drink and even if I did it would be a bad idea to have a beer before rounding in the hospital). There was also a vendor selling plant based power bars. I bought some since I like to support local, plant-based environmentally conscious businesses. There were also a few foods trucks. I wish I could have hung around more but I had to leave to round. Overall I thought this was a nice race. I would recommend it just for the race shirt. I do wish they had better social distancing for the 5K but hopefully that won’t be a problem next year.