Alex's Duck Duck Run (Saint Joseph - 2021 - 5K)
90 Mile Drive
Registration:
I became interested in Alex’s
Duck Duck Run when I saw the great duck pictures and theme. I liked the main duck cartoon image with its
running legs. In addition to the cute ducks,
the RunSignUp page had a very appealing course description….
“The 5K course will take runners
and walkers along the beautiful St. Joseph River and two Lake Michigan beaches.
Participants will race along Silver Beach, Lions Park Beach and Howard
Recreational Trail and then through the Whirlpool Compass Fountain. The race
begins and ends at the Margaret Upton Arboretum.”
(https://runsignup.com/Race/MI/SaintJoseph/AlexsDuckDuckRun?remMeAttempt=)
Anyone who knows me knows that
Lake Michigan courses and Michigan medals are a weakness of mine. I love running on courses that have Lake
Michigan views. I don’t get a lot of
medals with Michigan on them. I treasure
the ones I have gotten over the years.
Duck Duck Run events included a
5K and 1K kids run. Online registration
stated that kids run participants received a bib, t-shirt and rubber duck award. The Alex Mandarino Foundation was briefly described
on RunSignUp, age group categories were listed and there were pictures of age
group medals, participant t-shirts and the course path with links to their Facebook
page, The Alex Mandarino Foundation and a course survey.
The mission of the Alex Mandarino Foundation is to fund research for pediatric cancers and provide financial assistance to families living in Southwest Michigan that have children fighting cancer. It was founded in 2013 after Alex Mandarino’s passing on July 8, 2013. Alex had fought Neuroblastoma for two years and is described by his family as incredibly tough and strong. At only five years old, it was rare for Alex to complain of pain during the many treatments and procedures he endured.
Course:
The course was an amazing scenic beach tour! We followed the Saint Joseph River around downtown
Saint Joseph. I saw their Farmer’s Market
on top of a large hill as we passed alongside train tracks near Compass Park. It was on Broad Street next to the Compass
Park water jets that we got our first glimpse of Lake Michigan. The Lake Michigan path on Lions Drive lasted
a mile with some breaks on beach house streets.
There was one water aide station with very enthusiastic volunteers.
We turned around at the Silver Beach parking area. Instead of going back along the path we had
taken we turned right on the John and Dede Howard Family Recreation Path. The path was a .33 mile long wide black top
trail that ran from Lions Park Drive to Park Street . It was a very shady part of the course. After the recreation path it was back along
Lake Michigan past some more amazing homes.
One home had a young girl with a hose spraying participants. Her family was outside with her. I got a really great picture of all of them
having a great time. The race
photographer got amazing shots of participants enjoying being sprayed.
When we came through Compass Park on the way back to the finish
we went by it much closer on the west side.
It looked awesome. I didn’t know
what the large metal globe-like structures were. I learned later it was a giant splash pad! After passing the water jets at Compass Park
it was the same path along downtown Saint Joseph winding up to Margaret B.
Upton Arboretum and back under the Main Street bridge to the finish.
Luke’s 1K course was a straight down and back path along the Saint
Joseph River with Vine Street as the turnaround point. It was the perfect course for kids to avoid
main roads and still get nice scenery.
I loved the huge sculptures we passed on the beach, enthusiastic course volunteers and random strangers clapping from their homes. At a quick glance the 5K course also looked like a straight out and back course, but there were only a few areas that overlapped. There was almost constant new scenery the entire 3.1 miles. The course had its elevation changes but they were always very gradual, nothing steep and tiring. I’d still call it relatively flat course.
Swag:
Luke and I both received awesome light blue duck shirts and personalized bibs with ducks. My bib had color and Luke’s was black and white. Luke got an amazing duck finisher medal. There were no finisher medals for 5K participants. There were no sponsor freebies at this event. I loved the duck logo and was very excited to have a shirt and bib with Alex’s ducks on them.
Food:
The post-race food was well thought out and amazing. The fun run had two tables with three flavors
of CapriSun, mini water bottles, snack size Goldfish cracker bags, yellow frosted
and yellow sprinkled duck cookies packaged individually in small plastic bags
and chocolate dipped pretzel sticks with sprinkles.
The 5K post-race food table had two huge boxes of apples and bananas,
full sized water bottles, a large Biggby coffee carafe with cups, stir sticks and
cream, the yellow frosted and yellow sprinkle duck cookies and white and milk
chocolate dipped pretzel sticks with rainbow sprinkles.
The coffee, fruit and CapriSun were the three differences
between the two post-race food tables. I
loved that their post-race snacks were tied into the race name with duck
cookies and Goldfish. Not many races do
that. I have seen it done a few times. At the Playmaker’s Holiday Classic they had
MSU themed Christmas cookies.
I was sad that Luke couldn’t have most of the amazing treats after his race, but I still loved everything that Alex’s Duck Duck Run had for its participants after they finished.
Awards:
Overall awards for fastest female and male were given for the 5K
race. Overall winners received medals
and a gift card to Connected Soles. Awards
went two deep in five-year age groups that started at “10 and under” and ended
at “60 and older” Age group winners got the most amazing age group medals! Their “10 and under” age group was very fair. I thought they could have gone a tad higher with
“70 and older” as their top age group category and three deep in their age
group awards. The most common award places
I’ve seen used in races are one and three deep. I’ve seen age groups go as far as “five deep”
at RF Event races. This was my first time
experiencing only first and second place age group awards.
There were 315 5K finishers. Alex’s Duck Duck Run was one of the largest running events I have been too since Covid struck. I finished in my favorite age group place of third and felt really good about it. I was really sad when I didn’t get a duck medal. It was even worse that the second place female in my age group was only 19 seconds faster than me. Seeing Luke’s awesome finisher medal made me think I should have signed up for the kids 1K. It was a hard loss for me because they didn’t have finisher medals and their age group medals were so amazing. The medals were done in gold and light blue. They had the race name, date, city and the little ducks I instantly loved when I was registering for the run. It is so rare to get a medal with all the information about the race on it, especially the city! I hope they have very similar age group medals next year. My sadness about not receiving one has become determination to get one in 2022.
City Notes:
We took a short walk to downtown Saint Joseph. I knew how close it was from the run. Our car needed extra time to charge before we
drove home. We passed a cool swing on
the riverfront and more art sculptures after we went under the Main Street Bridge.
The first thing I saw when we made it to the top of the hill from the river was
an amazing mural of a squirrel taking a picture of a pile of acorns. It was on the side of the Holt Bosse
building. It must have been a relatively
new mural as it is not in Google Earth’s 2019 street view.
Saint Joseph has a really cool city layout. Walking in the alleyways behind downtown businesses was a second path with totally different scenery than the main roads. We made our way to the Farmer’s Market first because Farmer’s Markets typically don’t stay open late into the afternoon. We had stayed at the run with all their post-race fun for a while.
We found a great vendor with Jason’s favorite….
SOFT PRETZELS!!
….and they were homemade!
The same vendor also had chocolate covered strawberries. We bought four of them with Jason’s
bagel. I have never seen chocolate
covered strawberries at a Farmer’s Market before. I had also never seen tomato broth before. We thought about buying it, but I should be
glad we didn’t with my unfortunate acid reflex.
We did however find honeycomb! Honeycomb
is one of my favorite snacks. At the same
honey stand we got honey sticks for the kids.
They had so many honey stick flavors.
The Saint Joseph Farmer’s Market had the best location of any Farmer’s
Market I have ever been to on the hill along Lake Blvd. Seeing constant views of Lake Michigan while
walking the market was amazing.
Saint Joseph has really unique shops. A series of shops had their business names
hanging from the covered walkways that connected each store. One of my favorite shop names was, “The
Candlestick Maker …Free Sniffs!” The Candlestick
Maker had so many unique artisan made items.
Their website nails it with the description:
“A whole bunch of stuff you will want, and maybe a few things
you will need.”
I bought a mini rock sculpture to remember the run by. I had never seen a tiny version for
sale. I have seen the same tower rock
formations made on the beach and on trails.
We went next door into the Purely Michigan store and shockingly
I did not buy a thing… The large Monopoly
cards in frames were awesome and I loved the Michigan skillet even though its shape
wasn’t really practical. Jason liked the
wallets made from old fire fighter hoses.
State Street Stuff drew our attention by its groovy hippie blue
awning and bright colorful window full of floor to ceiling items. It was sensory overload inside. They had so many
hilarious things. We could have stayed
in the shop at lot longer. I could have
done a lot of Christmas shopping in State Street Stuff. The only thing I didn’t like about the shop were
all the signs about stealing. It was a
little over the top. I feel bad if they
have had a lot of theft in the store. We
didn’t walk out with anything, but there was a bunch we loved, especially the
tiny sign that read:
“If you are looking for a sign, this isn’t it.”
We met two awesome Dalmatians outside State Street Stuff and
passed an awesome pet boutique and bakery called, “Fuzzy Butz.”
In an attempt to find Luke a gluten free lunch we walked into Caffe
Tosi on Pleasant Street. It had an
amazing bakery display but unfortunately nothing gluten free that Luke felt
like, so we left our third store empty handed.
We found Shu’s Grill and Bar across the street from Caffe Tosi. They had a great indoor atmosphere and menu. We had some of the best food at Schu’s. All the kids got Oreo’s as a kids meal dessert. Our waitress was amazing and brought Luke a
vanilla sundae instead. The service and quality
was top notch. I loved everything, especially
my fancy hot chocolate. We will remember
Shu’s when we come back to Saint Joseph.
After lunch we took a walk to Silver Beach Park where we unleashed
the kids “metaphorically” to have fun. There
was a huge play structure in the sand on the beach. It was fun for the kids and relaxing for J
and I. On our mile walk back to the
charging station we saw an awesome sheriff boat, floating train bridge (unfortunately
not in use) basements being dug out for new homes and walked over an awesome
bridge to cross the Paw Paw River.
I loved how Saint Joseph built swings around the town and near the water. It was a unique take on a standard city “bench.” You could tell people loved them.
City Sign:
The Saint Joseph city sign was on the Saint Joseph River along the river walk, just a tad off the 5K course where it couldn’t be seen well. We found it on our walk back to the car at the end of our day downtown. We didn’t have to spend time driving around looking for it. It was a really well-kept sign with a boat painted on. It was in an interesting location facing the harbor. I must have been for boats coming in since it didn’t face traffic on a road. That means….
There must be other Saint Joseph city signs around! ^_^
Other Awesomeness:
The venue for the Duck Duck Run along the Saint Joseph River was
amazing and really set the energy and tone for a wonderful family friendly event. They had multiple blow-ups, a stand-in duck
photo board and a balloon animal tent with Squiggles and Smaxy. There was upbeat music playing from their DJ and
boats going in and out of the harbor all morning. The kids spent the entire time I was running playing
in the blow-ups and it was hard getting them to leave.
I loved the duck theme of this race! The lead bike had a duck plush and rubber
duckie on it. They had tons of duck signs. I found a group of six people dressed in
yellow and white with boas and rubber ducks on their hats. I immediately ran over to them and asked to
take their picture. They were amazing
and made the event extra special. The duck cookies were great! Their same day registration pencils even had
duck erasers on top!
Jason was on the Main Street Bridge at the beginning of the 5K
start and got the best starting video and event pictures from a great vantage
point. I didn’t know he was up there
until I got closer and saw a little person looking down with his camera.
They had a very touching awards ceremony. Alex’s dad announced awards and his younger brother
handed medals to winners.
We kept seeing helicopters flying over and older war boats
cruising down the Saint Joseph River. At
one point we saw a large black smoke cloud and what sounded like an explosion. We found out later the, “Lest We Forget,” a reenactment
of the Korean War was taking place on the other side of the river. They had helicopter and boat rides, 20th
century war displays, WWII landing craft rides, a beach landing marine assault,
M.A.S.H skits, historians and Korean War POW speakers and a concert.
After our day in Saint Joseph we met mom and Sean in Saugatuck and visited a few shops. “It Is What It Is” on Butler Street had so many cool things. I’ve included pictures of some of my favorites from the store. The kids enjoyed their time at Village Square Park in Saugatuck. We got some cool slow motion swinging videos of them. Mom and Sean followed us back home just in time for our horse ride with Marshall Carriage Co. and Ghost Tours. We had an amazing hour and a half long ghost tour from Dennis through downtown Marshall and Oakridge Cemetery to end the night.
To learn more about the Alex Mandarino Foundation you can visit their website:
https://thealexmandarinofoundation.org/
Course Rating: 5 Stars
Post-Race Food Rating: 5 Stars
Swag Rating: 3.5 Stars
Awards Rating: 2.9 Stars
Alex’s Duck Duck Run Quote:
“Keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like hell underwater.” - Michael Caine
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