SUMMER SOLSTICE TWILIGHT 5K (Coloma - 2021 - 5K)
Registration:
The RunSignUp page
for the Summer Solstice Twilight 5K had a lot of information with pictures. I love seeing pictures on social media and registration
pages. There were pictures of finisher
medals, shirt design, overall awards, a nicely highlighted course map with
location of police cars. The registration
page had important notes to participants about reusable timing chips, early registrant
wrist bands needed at the finish to receive medals and the most shocking….
….No aide station on the course.
I will get more into that later.
They had a great
course map with color-coded miles. I have
not seen that done before. I liked the non-existent
registration fees. That is something
unique to SWMI RACERS events I have noticed after running their races a few
times. The RunSignUp page had so much
information about the event, down to restaurants to eat at after the race. Summer Solstice had one of the most detailed
registration pages I’ve ever seen. They updated
the registration page when medals and shirts had sold out.
Packet pick-up at Coloma High School was quick and easy. It was set up inside the big entrance gates near the track. Everything they were handing out was in a plastic container and boxes and was very well organized. A very nice check-in woman with a great smile let me take her picture. My information was stapled to the strap of the reusable bag they gave me. It was a very unique placement.
Course:
The course was full
of turns and repetition. The 5K started
on the end of the Coloma High School track where it exited out near the parking
lot. We ran past Coloma Middle School on
West Saint Joseph Street before doing a full circle on neighboring subdivision roads. We went back out on main roads and passed a
McDonald’s and a Speedway near the 94 exit ramps to Coloma. We came to a loop turn around on a dirt road portion
of S. West Street just after two miles.
It was right next to 94 and I could hear the traffic going by. When we got back to the school it was all the
way around the track, even though the finish was where we started near the gated
entrance. It was a hard quarter mile finish
in blazing shadeless heat being totally exhausted, but I still love a chance to
run on a track.
There were multiple volunteers at every turn on the course and they all had awesome neon yellow and orange flags that they were waving. The Paw Paw River JEEP club had six awesome JEEPS parked on the side of the road throughout the course. I saw the finish line from about a half mile away in a neighborhood while I was circling back. They had great cones at the finishing line and an amazing finishing sky to admire. The course was very flat. It was a great course to run with friends or family. You could give high fives and encouragement at multiple turn-around points. It was not the most scenic course I’ve run on in a town, but it definitely had awesome moments.
Swag:
During registration we had a choice of a preshrunk soft style cotton t-shirt, or for a $5.00 upgrade we could receive a tank top. It is so rare for me to get a tank top at a run that I instantly knew the extra $5.00 was well worth a unique shirt. The SWMI RACERS $5.00 member discount paid for the shirt upgrade. Our shirts were given to us in red reusable grocery bags.
All participants received amazing finisher medals on a fiery print lanyard. The Summer Solstice event logo was on the shirts and medals. The finisher medals had a very unique design in their metal rim with four stars in the corners. The glass plating made the finisher medals very professional. They were very high quality. I loved the sun logo and choice of two shades of orange for the text/sun and background. The Summer Solstice finisher medals are one of my favorites.
Food:
The was a Coloma Subway sponsored table with post-race snacks. It had Dasani water bottles (I am not a Dasani fan), Nature Valley crunchy granola bars and fruit and nut granola bars. They also had Chewy chocolate chip granola bars. With proof of participation in the 5K each participant could receive 50% off a meal from the Friendly Tavern in downtown Coloma. It was an awesome race perk! The tavern was very busy after the race and couldn’t seat our bigger family for 45 minutes to an hour. I got 50% off a carry-out soup instead.
Awards:
Overall male and female 5K runners received awesome trophies that had a flying shoe resting on a bright orange diamond that sat on a white base with a sticker engraving. They were really nice. I do not know what was given out for age group awards. Summer Solstice only went one deep in ten-year increments starting at “14 and under.” I came in my favorite place of “third” after my struggle in the heat. They had a raffle that gave out five $10 gift cards. I am not sure where the gift cards were from. I assumed they were from the tavern in downtown Coloma.
City Notes:
We did a lot of exploring in Coloma after the race. Our first stop was the Friendly Tavern in downtown Coloma to score a 50% meal for me. Unfortunately, the wait was too long for us. I got a to-go order a little later. The restaurant was very popular and rustic on the inside. I loved the atmosphere. Even though most of the shops in Coloma were closed for the day we got to admire a lot of store front window items. Ryan found an awesome robot and there were beautiful necklaces and mosaic art. We found a beach lighthouse display in one window. “If the Shoe Fits” was a great shoe store name. Four Seasons Spa and Pool had awesome blow-up ducks, a huge Native American wood carving and amazing metal flower sculptures. Soulard’s Bakery and Café had a wonderful paint job that accented the vintage wood molding on the building. HUB 185 had a huge metal chicken on its roof!
Coloma had a great veteran’s
memorial with metal engraved signs for all branches of military next to a 3D
metal bald eagle on a large metal globe.
In the same area were two benches and four American flags. At night the memorial lit up with white lights
in the surrounding trees. It was
beautiful.
As you enter downtown
Coloma you pass by Barker Park which was purchased in 1885 by Dr. William Baker. In the park is a special Vietnam veteran’s area
with the “Vietnam Veteran’s Cross” and three flags on a brick circle. Behind the Vietnam Memorial is an awesome town
clock that must have been installed by the Coloma High School Class of 1959. There is a big “Welcome to Coloma” rock with
a built-in digital screen for city news and events. My favorite part of Baker Park was the huge carved
tree trunk. Every side of the tree was
carved and some carvings were painted!
It had “COLOMA” in big letters on one side. The carved tree is something totally unique
to Coloma. I will always remember
it.
The old LOMA movie theater was showing three sequels all at once; Peter Rabbit 2, A Quiet Place 2 and The Hitman’s Bodyguard 2. We watched the first Peter Rabbit move together. The timing was perfect and the ticket prices were amazing so we stayed and watched Peter Rabbit 2 before going home. I got carry out soup from The Friendly Tavern and theater nachos for the show. Nachos and cheese for me are what popcorn is to most Americans at a movie theater, a must have. Jason and the kids got hotdogs, drinks and snacks from the theater. Everything was so reasonable, you could get so much more for what you’d spend at a huge movie theater chain. The seats at LOMA were better than a handful of older theaters I have been to, but they still were not Emagine seats. We enjoyed the movie and theater experience. It was an extra special night for us in Coloma.
City Sign:
Coloma has multiple awesome city signs! We went driving thinking we would find one on the outskirts of town as you enter. We found a small almost “City Limits” reminiscent looking sign not even a mile from downtown Coloma on Red Arrow Highway. There was another tree sculpture from an old tree truck of two bears! The sign stated, “A Great Place to Live!”
The second Coloma city
sign was right off Exit 39 from 94 in a grass field by the Speedway I had run
past. It was a large wooden sign with a
huge peach that said, “Welcome to Coloma.”
The third and main Coloma city sign was at the entrance of Coloma’s downtown area. It was a huge rock sign with a built-in monitor that had city information. It had a small peach and a branch with pink flowers. I believe the pink flowers were Redbud flowers but that is only a guess. I remember seeing so many Redbud trees in Eau Claire. Eau Claire is 20 minutes south of Coloma. The Coloma rock sign had a scenic background being in Barker Park and was the first rock city sign I have found! I loved it. All of Coloma’s city signs were great.
Other Awesomeness:
The boys found an amazing Coloma comet statue by the high school
while I was running. It was one huge
comet made from thousands of little metal comets. It was an absolutely beautiful school mascot
artwork piece.
I really liked how results were printed off on little sheets of
paper for participants waiting on a table for us to grab. I took mine to have as an addition to my running
wall. I may buy one of the tiny frames
Michaels sells for it in the future. They
had everything on the tiny results sheet, even speed! I love it when running events add speed as a
results statistic. It was a well-designed
results tab. I will be remembering it for
a run I may hold in the future.
I have never worn a paper wristband that was cut off to receive
a finisher medal. There was an updated memo
added to RunSignUp about there being no more finisher medals or shirts left as
the run got closer. Wristbands were for pre-registered
participants that got registered before medals ran out. There were 77 total participants. I wonder what the medal cut off was. Numbers such as “50” or “75” come to mind
first. I was very surprised they couldn’t
have medals for all finishers. It was really
sad to me. I imagine the Summer Solstice
medals were more costly to make and that was probably a factor in not having enough. I would not have a 5K run if I couldn’t have
enough medals for all finishers, especially if I had amazing medals like the
Summer Solstice Twilight 5K had.
It's very unfortunate that I have to express a very strong opinion
and write about something negative for the Summer Solstice Twilight 5K. I was very opposed to the event choosing not
to have one aide station on the course with water. June and July can be some of the hottest
running months in Michigan. June 18th
was no exception. Having the run take
place in the evening did not make things better. The temperature in Coloma at 7:00pm was 82
degrees with a humidity of 50%. The
course had very limited shade. I
understand that it was clear on the registration page and in the pre-race speech
that no water would be on the course.
…I still think they should have had an aide station.
There was an abundance of volunteers on the course. Water and cups are so inexpensive. I do not understand the race staff’s decision
to forego an aide station. Even if
warned, many runners will still forget or just not bring water. At the end of the race a woman I was running
very close to during the second half of the course almost passed out. She was held onto by a group of people and
brought to the ground in a sitting position.
Race staff and finished participants gathered around her. They gave her a water bottle and patted her
head with damp towels. An ambulance
arrived before we left. I did not see
her get up.
As we were leaving the event we saw two more ambulances going
towards the high school. I would not be surprised
if another participant succumbed to heat stroke. Later, we saw the ambulances leave the high
school and get onto 94 with their flashing lights on.
I truly hope the affected participants were okay after treatment. Heat stroke is very scary. I remember the EMS team at Burton telling me runners would drop like flies at Crim. Crim has an abundance of water stations. Even with water stations people can get in trouble, but to have none is setting yourself up for BIG problems from the start. Water can always and should always be provided at a race. On the Summer Solstice Twilight course an aide station could have been met by participants twice in many of the areas because the course overlapped so much. I am very sad and frustrated at the care that was not taken to keep participants safe on an extremely hot summer night. I ran past one young runner who had stopped on and off to walk like me when the heat got to us. She looked at me sweating and out of breath and said that she was usually not as slow, but the heat was really affecting her. Every participant felt the scorching sun that night. My hydration pack comes with me on all summer runs no matter the distance because of the dangers of heat while running.
At the end of the race when I was making the last official turn back into the school a course marshal near a cool JEEP saw me start to walk and said, “Don’t you stop now!” She smiled at me. I was instantly motivated to pick up my speed and finish the remainder of the course without walking. It was such a hot and tiring 5K I didn’t think I was going to make it at the end. I usually don’t stop to walk with the finish line in sight. I was very thankful for that awesome volunteer. I needed someone to be awesome and blunt with me in that moment.
Course Rating: 3.5 Stars
Post-Race Food Rating: 3.7 Stars
Swag Rating: 5 Stars
Awards Rating: 4 Stars
Summer Solstice Twilight 5K Quote:
“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” - French Proverb.
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