Run the Vineyards Cork High & Bottle Deep Half Marathon

This is part of the Run the Vineyards race series produced by a running company called “A Good Day for a Run.” They produce a lot of races in the mid-Atlantic region. I did one of their 5K a couple years ago which I really enjoyed so I was wanted to check out this half marathon. This year a bunch of my runner friends from some of my running clubs were also planning to do it and it was the day after the Rocky Run so I was in. This race is located in NJ about 30-40 minutes from Philadelphia so it’s an easy race to get to. There was good pre race communication and option for race day packet pickup. I spent the day with my mom in Philadelphia so I did race day packet pickup. Parking and packet pickup were easy. It’s a nice sized race with a few hundred runners which makes things easier than a huge race like the Rocky Run. Packet included bib and a half zip shirt which was fairly nice for swag for a smaller more local race. There was a good amount of porta potties and the start was easy to find. There were no corrals but there were pacers. The slowest pacer was 3 hours. The race has a 3:30 time limit but one of the 3 hour pacers thought it’d be cute to have a sign that said sweeper which nearly gave me a heart attack as I did not think I could finish this in under 3 hours since along with doing the Rocky Run I also walked around the Philadelphia Zoo and the King of Prussia mall yesterday and my feet were very sore. She assured me she was not and thought it was cute because she was the last pacer. The last pacer is NOT the sweeper if the last pacer is not the course time limit. Please if any one reading this is pacing a race do not label yourself a sweeper unless you are the sweeper. Other than that the start was well organized. I did stick with the 3 hour pacers in the beginning to see if I could keep up. They seemed to be pacing pretty well but as I expected I could not keep up with how sore I was. The first part of the course is about 1/3 mile through the vineyard. This is grass/trail but non technical. The rest is on streets and a paved rail trail. After the vineyard it is about 1-2 miles on local streets. The streets were coned off and had police present so while not fully closed were very safe and the course was very well marked. The rest of the race is on a rail trail. It is very flat but I thought the scenery was kind of boring. It looked exactly the same as the rail trail by where I live. It was pleasant and flat though and the out and back is fun when doing a race with running friends since you can cheer them on. There were mile markers and generally everything was organized with aid stations every 1 to 2 miles with water and gatorade. Again no nutrition on course. One critique that I feel bad making and may be a bit out of the race’s control were the volunteers were not good. They were some of the least enthusiastic volunteers I have seen and many weren’t paying attention. I know you shouldn’t complain too much about people volunteering their time but if you volunteer for something you need to put in the effort. The worst was one volunteer who was a course marshal at an intersection didn’t see me coming and literally told cars to go when I was about to cross and I had to scream “I am here please stop the traffic” for him to notice me. This could be very dangerous if I wasn’t paying attention. Other issues weren’t nearly as big and a few volunteers were great but a lot where on their phones or chatting while they just placed water out. It was a cold morning and maybe everyone was just off due to the time change last weekend but the volunteers were kind of disappointing and I really didn’t like having to stop and wait for traffic since a volunteer didn’t see me. I’m not sure what the race organizers can do about this but maybe prep the volunteers better. The race as I said was an out and back. I managed to finish under the time limit of 3:30. It wasn’t a fast time for me but I was fine with it given how sore my feet were. I got my medal which is a fine medal for a smaller, local race and was cheered at the finish lines. No issues with being back of the pack but finishing under 3:30. They did keep the finish line open longer and some participants were over 4 hours and got finishing times. However I heard the experience after 3:30 wasn’t as good as they just left the finish line open and had medals on a table. This is all fair since there is a stated 3:30 time limit but I’d only strongly recommend this race if you can finish under 3:30. The finish area was great and there were food trucks. There were some basic snacks as well. My mom was a spectator and got pizza and donuts from the food trucks for lunch which were delicious. There is also wine which I didn’t drink. Overall I thought this was a fine race and well produced for a smaller, local race. I had fun seeing my running friends though I don’t know that this was an exciting enough race for me to travel to do it again over closer races. However I would definitely recommend it for locals and it’s a solid NJ for 50 staters.