CROSWELL LIBRARY PARKS AND PATHS 5K (Croswell - 2021 - 5K)
Registration:
My favorite part of
the online info for this race was the race staff’s determination to keep the
race in-person with their first line:
“WE HAVE EVERYTHING
INTENTION OF HOLDING THIS RACE.”
My belief has been and
always will be that in-person running events are safe. They can be easily socially distanced and
people typically can’t exercise when they are sick, so they don’t show up and
spread illnesses. Running events are an
immune boost in the respect of fresh air and exercise. When it comes to larger running events such as
the Boston and Chicago Marathons it can be more difficult to socially distance
but it can still be done. The small town
events I usually participate in are even less of a risk due to their size.
Croswell Library
Parks and Paths had a lot of awesome perks for runners in their race description. They had moisture wicking headbands for all
registered participants in addition to amazing overall prizes and free entry
into next years race if you broke female or male course records. They were pet friendly with prizes for
fastest dogs and gave registration discounts if two or more people were
registered. Luke and I got a $5.00
discount on our 5K registrations for registering together. It was awesome! I love multi-person discounts
but they usually start at three registrants.
I rarely see them given for two.
Luke is the only other family member that runs 5Ks currently. Will does not like running, Ryan has recently
become our mile runner and Jason’s knees cause him to struggle with the
constant pounding of running.
Packet pick-up was
under a park pavilion. It was very easy
to get to with good parking. A lot of
volunteers manning the pavilion before and after the run.
Course:
The course followed
the Black River for a good portion of it.
We left out of Riverbend Park’s Splash Pad Park and turned right running
straight through downtown Croswell. We
passed by the Croswell Speedway gas station.
Gas prices were still high. We crossed
over the Black River on Sanborn Street.
It was a very cool view. I could
see the start from the bridge! We ran
through some cool Croswell neighborhoods and passed a fun water station being
manned by a woman and her son with pre-poured cups. My favorite part of the course was when we
ran off Stevenson Street into a trail in the woods along the Black River. We came out of the woods at Harrington Road
Park and crossed over the Black River again right before coming back to the
finish line. I could see the finish line
across the river while running through the woods. It was really cool.
Overall, the course
was flat with a lot of turns. There were
a few small hills on the trail, but no notable elevation increases. There were volunteers at every turn we had to
make in bright green event shirts.
Croswell’s volunteers seemed very happy to be there guiding us. They had great mile marker signs with their
race logo on them. I really enjoyed the
course. It was a great touring course
for Croswell.
Swag:
Luke and I received bibs
and ultra-soft blue race headbands at registration. They bibs were plain white bibs with red
numbers. The headbands were so cool! Luke and I both wore our headbands during the
run. The headband helped keep my hair
out of my face at this race. This run
did not have shirts for participants but they did have nice bright green shirts
and tank tops for their race staff. The
finisher medals helped the loss of the race shirt because they were so unique
and amazing.
They had posted
pictures of all the run awards, giveaways and medals on RunSignUp. I knew in advance what books they used for
the medals. I really wanted “Call of the
Wild” because of the awesome wolf in a moonlit nature scene. Medals were first come first serve based on
finishing time. All I could do is hope I
was fast enough to finish with a “Call of the Wild” still left. I did indeed get my “Call of the Wild” medal
and was very excited. Luke picked “Oh
the Places You Will Go” by Dr. Seuss. It
was a very fun colorful medal. They had
eight different books on medals. Each
medal was made by Lauren Cross. She did
awesome work! I got to meet Lauren and
her awesome dog Ki before the run. I
absolutely loved the custom-made artwork medals!
Food:
There was a great
variety of granola bars at the finish line.
They had the three flavor Nutri-Grain variety pack with blueberry,
strawberry and apple, Nature Valley peanut butter and peanut almond dark chocolate
bars as well as the variety pack of Nature Valley crunchy bars. I didn’t know the crunchy Nature Valley bars
had other flavors. The variety pack came
with peanut butter and maple brown sugar.
There were regular size water bottles with the granola bar buffet. I wish they had a few gluten free granola
bars for Luke. He has to donate his run
food to his brothers often. I don’t expect
runs to have gluten free post-race food.
We always get excited for Luke at the few runs that do have things he can
eat.
Awards:
Croswell Library
Parks and Paths 5K did not have age group awards but rather a lot more overall
age group categories with awards. It was
a very unique way to do awards and I liked it.
At Dairy Discovery I thought the age groups were too large. Croswell’s categories were also large but
they were overall awards with big prizes for runners so it worked better. If female or male runner set a new course
record they received a free race entry for 2022. I thought that was really cool! The prizes were as follows:
First overall male
and female won a $100 gift card to Elite Feet in Port Huron.
Second overall male
and female won a Noxgear illuminated vest for night running.
Third overall male
and female won a pair of Goodr Sunglasses.
Overall male and
female under 13 won a $50 Barnes and Noble gift card.
Overall Masters male
and female (40-59) won a beautiful stainless steel medal hanger.
Overall Grandmasters
male and female (60 and older) won a black running belt.
Overall first,
second and third place dogs won illuminated collars!
It was a great award
ceremony with many happy participants that really appreciated the items they
had received. Croswell put a lot of
thought into their award categories and prizes for overall winners.
City Notes:
I’ve always wanted
to visit the city of Croswell because of the infamous Swinging Bridge. I wanted to go to Croswell for the 2019
Swinging Bridge 5K in July but Jason was in Georgia for training and in 2020 it
was cancelled. The Swinging Bridge was
only feet away from the Croswell Library Parks and Paths 5K start and finish. It was as awesome as it looked in the
pictures and super cool to walk across!
We walked across it at least four times while we stayed in Croswell. Corky was very skeptical of the bridge. It shakes a lot and has an entrance sign that
says, “Be Good to Your Mother-In-Law.”
It’s truly a unique bridge. (Michigan.org/property/croswell-swinging-bridge)
has a lot of cool facts about the Croswell Swinging Bridge:
“The Croswell
Swinging Bridge is a pedestrian suspension bridge in Michigan and is claimed
that this is the longest spanning suspension foot bridge in Michigan, although
Michigan really does not have many bridges of this type to begin with. It was
built in 1905 at an original cost of $300. It spans 139 feet. The original
bridge had just two cables which were provided by Michigan Sugar Company and
were used to support the planks. To provide a handhold, two more cables were
added at a cost of $150. In August of 2006, all 128 planks were replaced at a
cost of $1,300. The Bridge originally had a sign at the west end that
admonished people to "Love Ye One Another." A sign at the east
entrance (Maple Street) still reads, "Be Good To Your Mother-in-law."
A festival to celebrate the bridge takes place the second weekend of August
each year and features cardboard boat races under the bridge.”
Jason, Ryan and Will
spent time at Riverbend Park Playground while Luke and I ran. We went back to Riverbend Park so Luke could
have some fun. After our park time we
took a walk down the trail section of the run by the Black River and made some
awesome slow motion jumping videos. We
went to Riverside Family Dining in Croswell to get a late breakfast. The food and service was amazing. The kids got really awesome cups with bendy
straws, something I remember from my childhood.
Luke loved his fish and Ryan and Will loved their huge strawberry
waffle.
As we were walking
through town taking pictures of Croswell we saw people starting to line the
streets in chairs. I stopped and asked
someone what was happening and I found out it was the Croswell- Lexington Class
of 2021 Car Parade. We had a great time
walking around Croswell. My favorite
Croswell businesses were, The State Bank of Croswell that was built in
1880. It had amazing columns and
architecture. I loved the name of the
“Thumb’s Up Sports Bar and Grill” and “Froststick Freeze” ice cream shop. There was a Swinging Bridge Music store. I was glad to see a shop named after The
Swinging Bridge. A window full of
running things caught my eye in town. The
shop window had a big sign advertising the Library Parks and Paths 5K, running
shoes, old race shirts and 18 bibs and finisher medals displayed in a very
cool way. I noticed some familiar runs including the
Poho Hot Cocoa Run, Move-It Fitness’s Run Thru the Leaves, Woodstock’s Funky
Bus 5K, Corktown Races and the Detroit Turkey Trot. Someone in town must be an accomplished
runner. I found the shop on Google maps
and in 2016 it was an antiques shop.
Lastly, I did not know there was a huge Pioneer Sugar plant in Croswell! We buy Pioneer Sugar a lot. It’s an awesome Michigan owned company and the third largest sugar supplier in the U.S with its headquarters in Bay City.
City Sign:
Croswell had awesome city signs! We all took a picture with the Croswell Swinging Bridge sign. Jason even made it swing ever so slightly like the actual bridge for a short video. As we were leaving Croswell we found the official blue Croswell city sign. It was an irregular pentagon shape. It had a big flower plot underneath it bordered by large rocks. It is the most unique city sign shape I have found yet. It gave me Roswell, New Mexico vibes in its general shape and the shape of the letters. I dropped my sweater as we left the city sign and I didn’t realize it until we were a few miles down the road. We got back to the sweater as the Saturday tornado tests were going off.
Other Awesomeness:
Croswell Library Parks and Paths 5K stands out to me with their
extremely unique awards and swag for participants. I thought it was awesome they included young
children and dogs in their overall awards ceremony. The running headbands were very unique and the
homemade book medals were something I will probably not see again. You could tell the race staff put a lot of
thought and heart into this run.
I met a woman named Lori Vezina before the race that was running
with her family. I got an awesome
picture of them. Lori is a Physical
Therapist at Port Huron schools and is putting together a new running event
where people can choose how many “K’s” they want to run during the race called “My
K.” She didn’t want runners to feel
pressured to complete a whole 5K distance and be able to do races at their own
distances. I was told by Lori, The
Michigan Special Olympics will be sponsoring the event for all schools that
have special education students. It was
very inspiring!
I got the meet and take a picture of a handful of the race staff
after the race ended. I spoke with the
race director Marty and told him about my Michigan running goal. He was a great MC during awards. I told Marty I would send him my race
pictures. Unfortunately, in my extremely
falling behind with my page I was very late in getting the event pictures I
took to him. They race staff were very
kind people. I’m glad so I got to meet
them.
We saw a metal fisherman and a kayaking fisherman on one of our walks
over the Swinging Bridge. I had to ask
the people that were metal fishing what they were doing when we saw them
throwing out their line. I want to try
metal fishing someday. I also want to go
metal detecting out in Lake Michigan.
When we went back out on the trails we saw a lot of skull
painted trees and noticed a frisbee golf course. We found four skull painted trees. They were spooky, cool and totally
unexpected. We found an area on the
Black River down from the Swinging Bridge where it looked like another bridge once
existed.
On our way out of town we walked by two awesome dogs that we
stopped to pet while talking to their own owner.
They were the most calm and peaceful dogs just enjoying life. It was a good way to end our Croswell
day.
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