DRAGONS IN THE WOODS (Holt - 2019 - 5K)

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  Dragon in the Woods 2019 Photos

78 Mile Drive



The 2019 Dragons in the Woods holds the title for best overall awards!  Their huge wood carved dragons standing on a wood base with a personalized plaque are the best overall award I have seen yet!  I wanted one so bad but I knew my chances were slim.  I looked up prior year female winners and there were actually two years I could have competed for one and come in close.  That surprised me and gave me a tiny glimmer of hope.

I usually end up getting to check-in at runs with less than 10 minutes to spare.  I somehow got the time wrong in our favor.  We ended up waking up an hour too early.  We got to Burchfield Park at 7:50am with a race start time of 9:00am.  We got awesome teal long sleeve tech shirts with dragons on them.  The start was a short walk from the pavilion.  It was an uphill start with a lot of tree roots.  It was a very dense woods with tight trails between tall grasses.  I gave it my all but it wasn’t enough for a wood dragon.  

The race director and staff were all very friendly.  Luke came in a second before a boy in his age group but did not hand his tag to the timing lady first so he got fourth place.  Once everyone had left I went back up and asked the race director what they were doing with their extra medals.  I saw a bunch left over including a handful of third place medals.  Runners leaving before award ceremonies can cause medals to be left unclaimed, however, I knew there wasn’t a third place position in my age group.  It was one of those moments I knew Luke rightfully had third place and I felt really bad for him.  The race director gave me a third place medal for Luke!

They had an awesome firepit to warm up by after the run.  All five of us huddled by it for a while. I did my stretching near the fire.  It’s hard to get stretching in at cold runs and sometimes I forget once we get home.  They had cool wood age group medals with different color placing ribbons.  Their awards display was really unique and cool. 

After our awesome Fall trail run Jason googled local Holt restaurants.  He found a place that Google claimed every Holt native visits during sports season.  We ate lunch at Buddies Grill.  It was totally decked out for Halloween!!  It had the best restaurant Halloween decorations.  Buddies had arcade machines in the back.  Everything we ate, the lumberjack vegetable soup, chicken tacos, half-pound burger and sweet potato fries were amazing.  We split meals almost every time we eat out.  It helps our budget and gives us a buffet style experience.

Things I take away from Dragons in the Woods are:  1.  The most amazing overall running awards.  I will be back next year to try for overall female again.  You never know what a year's time can do.  I am all about redemption runs and waiting for great accomplishments overtime when it comes to my running.  For now I am content with my mini Mushu wood age group medal. I am very happy for the family that received a bunch of wood carved dragons.  I met them warming up around the fire pit.  2.  I loved that toasty fire pit!  I wish more of my winter events had fire pits.  It was very cozy.  3.  This run had an awesome race name, great course and was located in a cool suburb of our Michigan state capital!  I took pictures of some of the hilarious street names I captured in Holt!  I thought they were very unique and dragon-esque!


Holt Page
Location: 881 Grovenburg Rd, Holt, MI 48842, USA

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