Yankee Homecoming Road Race

This is a Tuesday race in Newburyport at the NH/MA border that has a 10 mile and 5K option. I did the 10 miler last year and it was one of my absolute worst racing experiences as the RD was extremely rude to the back of packers for the 10 miler. I said never again but they did apologize and offer to mail the medals we didn’t receive so I decided to keep an open mind and do the 5K this year as it is an extremely convenient race. The 5K was definitely a much better experience than the 10 miler but it was still very much catered to the front of the pack. Parking, swag, bib pick up was the same as last year so see that review. The 5K starts 10 minutes before the 10 miler. It is a very nice course though downtown Newburyport and about as scenic as you can get for the area. The 5K shared most of the best views of the 10 miler. There are also a ton of spectators. This could be a great race if it was more back of the pack friendly. It was a really hot evening and I had a rough day and I was not in the mood to run. I though about skipping the race but decided to speed walk. While there were no huge issues like running out of medals or food at the end. There were a couple issues being in the back. The first is the 5K and 10 mile share the same first mile so for use back of packers walking 15-16 minute miles that mean the first 10 milers caught up to us and they are escorted by a very loud police motor cycle telling us to get out of the way. I completely understand that the leader of the pack should be escorted and we should move but if the 5K and 10 miler were separated by 15 minutes instead of 10 minutes there would be no overlap on this part. Maybe I’m reading too into what happened last year but the RD seemed to not really care about making us have to move over and force us to watch the fast runners go past us. There was about 1/2 mile without them before they merged with us again. It would be so simple to have the 5K start 5 minutes earlier or the 10 mile start 5 minute later (or both and separate them by 20 minutes) to have less mixing. The finish while less anti-climatic than last time I still thought was quite elitist. I finished just under 50 minutes which is my speed walk goal. The lead 10 miler finished just over 50 minutes and since he started 10 minutes later would not be arriving at the finish line for another 10 minutes. However the announcer instead of cheering on and celebrating the 5K finishers currently at the finish line was spewing facts about the lead 10 miler who was again 10 minutes away. I total get if the races started at the same time and we finished at the same time that the first place 10 miler should get more attention but until he gets about a minute from the finish line let’s cheer on those who are there and not ignore us. I did get a medal this year and there was food left at the end. Overall this is probably a great race if you have an 8 minute mile pace but it’s not a great race for the back of the pack. Absolutely do not do the 10 miler if you can’t finish under 2 hours. If you are slower do the 5K but don’t expect to be cheered for. I will likely regrettably do this race again as I can’t say no to a weekday race so close to me.

I was very excited for this race as it is a large, well-known race that has been held for over 60 years right on the NH/MA border on a Tuesday evening and couldn’t be more convenient. However I will cut to the chase and say the RD was extremely rude to slow runners at the finish line and of the ~300 races I have done I have never seen an RD be this rude to slower runners. This race has a 5K and a 10 miler option. The 5K starts at 6pm and the 10 miler at 6:10pm. There was no stated time limits and I saw finishing times from prior years in the 2:30 range so I decided to do the 10 miler. The only caveat on the race website was to wear reflective clothing if you think you may finish later than 8pm. There is packet pick-up the day of the race. Parking is kind of a pain and if you can arrive early try to. I had to come after work and parked at about 5:45 and parked a few blocks away. I got my packet which included bib and a white tech shirt. Packet pick-up is efficient but I did not have time to go back to my car so I had to put the shirt in my fanny pack pouch on the run. The 5K went first and then the told us to line up in the corral there were no signs by pace but I assumed I would be near the pack since I doubted there would be many walkers since it would get so dark if you were longer than about a 2:30 pace. I was correct and there was only a handful of runners near the back and none were particularly slow. The slowest runner was 15:00 min/mile pace which is still a solid pace. The race seemed great with tons of crowd support and it was a really nice course with a mix of water front views, running through downtown and some more wooded suburban areas. It had a nice elevation profile with a few minor hills and elevation changes but nothing crazy and had a ton of aid stations while at least for the first 7 miles. However it was not the best race for the back of the pack. There were a sweeper team and while they didn’t force us to go faster it felt like there was pressure from the team and police for us to go faster to open roads up. It was not my favorite race experience but I do understand why that might have had to be done due to to city regulations, etc. Things really started getting worse when around mile 7 they closed the aid stations down. To be fair the volunteers at each aid station did offer me some water. But it is so discouraging to run past aid stations shutting down. It was especially discouraging as I was running a fairly solid pace for myself as I have previously stated I have been having breathing issues all summer due to air pollution and I have been running slower than usual. I was happy I was actually running 13 to 14 minute miles and was about the pace for a 3 hour marathon so having aid stations shut down really felt pretty terrible. I do appreciate that some spectators stayed to cheer us on at the end. I was even more disappointed when at mile 9 there was a sign that asked slow runners to run on the sidewalk. Again this is something that I can understand due to city regulations but is disappointing. I did slow down a bit the last mile due to it getting darker and some of the sidewalk having some cracks and holes in it. I arrived at the finish line around 2:20 which while I wouldn’t consider it a fast time it is not an exceptionally slow time and there were still a handful of runners behind me so what happens next to me is unacceptable. I run to the finish time relatively proud of my time considering the issues I’ve been having this summer and everything is pretty much packed up except the timing mat and finish sign. The RD did not cheer me on, congratulate me on finishing or tell me I did a good job. I just heard someone say “here’s another one.” The finish line was just crickets. They basically acted like I was a burden for taking so long. I then asked about the medals that were promised and got a blunt “we ran out.” No apology about running out basically acting like I didn’t deserve a medal (again these were promised to all finishers). I do understand how races may run out of medals and this isn’t the first time it’s happened to me but it’s the first time the race has not been apologetic about it. And all but one occasion (which was a charity race who sent a very nice apology before and after the race) all the races later mailed medals. I also asked about snacks because I was starving and they were liked they are packed away. What? You knew there were runners on the course why wouldn’t you leave out a few water bottles and snacks for us. I then demanded I get something as I was starving and got some snacks unpacked. I honestly felt so terrible after this race. Every other race I have done has been so encouraging at the finish line and as I’ve said I’ve run about 300 races. I have walked races, I have been DFL, I have been over time limits and I even DNF’ed once and in all those occasions the RDs have been so encouraging and cheerful at the end. It is not hard to be kind and congratulate people who gave you money. I can understand a few things such as making us go to the sidewalk, starting to board up some of the finish area, putting away some snacks, running out of medals but I cannot understand how you cannot even cheer for runners and congratulate them. This was absolutely disgusting elitist behavior. Even if all my other critiques stayed the same if the RD congratulated me, apologized about the medals and left out a few snacks and water bottles for the back of the pack I wouldn’t be thrilled with the race and I may dock a sneaker from the rating and I probably wouldn’t do the 10 miler again unless I got back to running 11-12 min/miles but I would have signed up for the 5K and recommended this race to faster runners. However after this behavior I would absolutely never run this race again unless it gets new management. And I would not recommend anyone else supports an RD who is not supportive to people of all paces. Also just some feedback for the RD if you are going to be unsupportive of people of all paces please set a time limit instead of treating us like second class citizens. If this said there was a 2 hour time limit I would have signed up for the 5K and not had such a terrible experience.

***I just wanted to add a positive updated. I initially rated this race 1 sneaker as I was very upset by the finish line. However the race company did later reach out to all the runners and apologized and ordered new medals which were mailed to us. While I don’t think this makes up for the entire experience I do appreciate them listening to feedback and trying to make things right and I added another sneaker to the rating. After this gesture I am now open to doing the 5K as this is a very convenient race for me but I would still not do the 10 miler unless I get back to running 11-12 min miles next summer***