Clare Irish Festive Races (Clare - 2022 - 5K)
Registration:
Clare Irish Festival of Races was completely different from my last two registrations. They had SO much information on RunSignUp. In the abundance of text, two highlighted areas included the location/address of the run at Clare High School and a reminder to enter through the cafeteria doors.
I cannot think of any
information about the run that was left out of the “Description” section on
RunSignUp. The only thing that could
have been added would have been pictures of the shirts and a race logo. I ended up using Clare’s 2022 run shirt as
the race logo when I couldn’t find one.
I appreciated Clare’s immense amount of detail. My only suggestion would be to take off the bold that was on almost all the text and put in some headlines to help break the information down into sections that flow a little bit better. It would make all their information easier to read and follow.
Packet pick-up was
in Clare High School. There was so much
signage inside the high school it reminded me of the registration page. I think the high school students may have
made the posters. They were awesome,
very informative and so colorful…
…and literally everywhere.
^_^
I was able to find
packet pick-up in the large crowd of participants very easily. I waited in line hoping I hadn’t registered
for the 10K. I thought I had registered
for one 10K in March but couldn’t remember if I had and if so, which race it
was. I want to run a 10K again soon, but
my breathing issues have had me worried I am still not ready for the longer
distance. I was very relieved when the
woman that handed me my shirt told me I was registered for the 5K. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable asking to be
dropped down in distance on such short notice and with so many runners. I think she expected me to be upset hearing
her answer. She looked surprised when excitement
and relief appeared across my face.
Course:
The 5K course was actually a tad hilly at
times. It was not what I would call a flat
street course. We ran through Clare
neighborhoods for half the course and Clare businesses for the other half. I thought we were going to run straight through
downtown Clare until I saw a police officer on a horse at the corner of Fifth and
Pine Street directed us to turn right onto Pine Street skipping the heart of downtown
Clare. It would have been hard to run around
the giant concrete barriers the city had put down to section off festival areas.
I think the officer’s horse was trying
to direct us verbally too. It was a very
a vocal horse when we ran past it. I wish
I had gotten video. The horse stopped
making sounds as soon as I took my camera out.
We ran on McEwan Street when we came back to the other
side of Clare’s downtown. It was awesome
running on the main road into Clare from 127.
I ran by Buccilii’s Pizza. I
remembered Buccilli’s from our trip to Lake City last year for The Greatest Fourth
in the North. We stopped and got dinner from
Buccilli’s on our way home. When I saw
Buccilli’s was having an Irish Pizza Buffet on the festival flyer, I knew we
were going back.
In the last mile of the course we ran by what I like
to call the “behind the scenes” of the parade.
Cars, trackers and trucks were staged in line on the streets of Clare leading
back to the high school. We passed a
cemetery in Clare right before the high school came back into view. The course made a complete loop finishing in
the opposite direction that we started. I
like courses that are loops and show different course scenery the entire way
more than out and back courses.
Clare’s
course was very well marked. I suspect
the two mile green, 5K orange and 10K red course markings were done
purposefully. The 10K broke off from the
two mile and 5K leaving Irish colors. Spray
painted arrows stood out on the black pavement and were at every turn. In addition to spray painted arrows on the
ground there were police officers, police horses and course volunteers at every
turn we made guiding us along the way.
There was a lot of course support from homes and festive attendees. One family was exceptionally loud from inside
their covered porch.
There was a two mile and 10K course in addition to
the 5K course. The two-mile course was identical
to the 5K course without an added east loop breaking off at the southern end. The 10K went up McEwan Street like the 5K did
but made a huge rectangle crossing over the South Branch Tobacco River once and
under 127 three times! I looked on Google
maps and saw no pedestrian walking paths under the 127 ramps. I am very curious what the course was like
under the expressway. I am interested in
running it in the future. I rarely run
under expressways and it’s intriguing.
There was a kids fun run that took off at the same start,
went around Clare Middle School (which is next to the Clare High School) for a
half mile loop.
Swag:
I received a black
t-shirt with the green Irish race name in cursive writing and the year. The year 2022 had shamrocks intertwined in the
numbers. I loved the cursive writing and
two shades of green. Unfortunately,
black shirts are almost as bad as white shirts for me because they attract dog
hair relentlessly. I still love the
color. Race shirts were given to the
first 500 participants to register. Luckily,
438 people registered for the three Clare races and every participant received
a race t-shirt.
Food:
I was taken by
surprise at the ticket I received at the finish line for one FREE pancake
breakfast. I missed the part of
registration that stated all participants got a free pancake breakfast. There were full sized water bottles in a
cooler in addition to the breakfast ticket.
When I got back into
the high school I did my post-run stretching for 15 minutes in the spacious gym
before walking over to the cafeteria for the pancake breakfast. The line was out the cold doors in the back,
but it moved quickly. As I got closer to
the pancake griddles I saw “Caution Flying Pancake” signs flashing and pancakes
flying through the air. I realized it
wasn’t just a standard pancake breakfast.
It was way more awesome catching my pancakes. There were
two sausage and orange juice tables separate from the pancake griddles. The sausage and orange juice were the
best. I think they used Tang as their
orange juice. I know Tang is a bit more
unhealthy with high fructose corn syrup, but I rarely drink it and like the
taste when I do. When Jason heard about
the breakfast he and the kids walked over to the high school. He bought a breakfast ticket even though they
had already stopped at Cops and Doughnuts to eat.
I have never had a
run include a free pancake breakfast into registration before.
Awards:
There were no awards
for the two-mile walk. For the 5K and 10K
they gave out overall awards for three different categories: 14 and under,
14-50 (General Overall) and 50 and over (Master’s Overall). It was awesome to see six different men and women
take home overall plaques. In addition
to the great overall categories, awards three deep were given out to 16 age
group categories! I have not seen so
many awards given out at a race. Irish
Festival Race age groups started very young (12 and under) and went up to
80+. It was amazing. I loved that the Clare Irish Festival Races added
young overall category to their overall awards.
Age group awards were medals with personalized stickers. I did not get to see them up close in person. The awards ceremony MC was great. He said special things about certain
winners. Two of his daughters won age
group awards.
I was a little disappointed
that so many people got up and left before older awards (50+) were handed
out. I have seen that happen too
frequently. Younger winners leave after
they receive their awards leaving a smaller crowd for older runners receiving awards. I liked the Big Bird Run for announcing
awards oldest to youngest. A few races
have done that.
The gym of Clare
High School was a great location for a larger awards ceremony. All of the people in attendance could sit
comfortably on the bleachers. We choose
to sit against the wall on the floor. We
were still plenty comfortable.
City Notes:
Clare is city located
right off 127 on the way to the Mackinac Bridge. It is five miles to far north from being dead
center in the lower peninsula between the Ohio/Indiana border and Straits of Mackinac.
If you draw a line straight south from Clare
it nearly marks the spot where Indiana, Ohio and Michigan meet. I think Clare is on the Ohio side, but it’s so
close, it’s hard to say for certain.
Clare has a bunch of
amenities and unique businesses. The original
Cops and Doughnuts is located in Clare.
It was opened in 2009 in the same building as the historic Clare Bakery
built in 1896. Nine Clare police officers
decided to buy the Clare Bakery to save it when it was going out of
business. There are three other Cops and
Doughnuts bakeries or more officially known as “precincts” in the state of
Michigan. Clare is dubbed the Cops and
Doughnuts headquarters where it all began.
We first discovered Cops and Doughnuts at their Bay City Precinct. I still have my huge donut pillow from the Bay
City Cops and Doughnuts. They have
amazing donuts! We have been to every
Michigan precinct except the Central Precinct in Mount Pleasant.
Clare has a very
unique water tower location. I haven’t seen
a city water tower so close to a downtown before. It is a block behind Cops and Doughnuts on Beech
Street. The water tower location was
made into a small gathering area in
Clare.
Clare is an extremely
Irish town all year-round. Their city
signs, water tower and many of their businesses have permanent shamrocks on them
or are colored in green and white. Clare
is home to the South Branch Tobacco River and 62 acre Shamrock Lake. Shamrock Lake has a very unique shape with a
large island in the middle. Surrounding Shamrock
Lake is Shamrock Park, a 9.8 acre park with a little league baseball diamond,
large pavilion and many amenities for families.
Right before we left
for home we met a local couple from Clare in Cops and Doughnuts. We got to talking. I asked if Clare had the largest Irish parade
in the state of Michigan and followed by asking how their Fourth of July parade
was in comparison. The man replied….
”Fourth of July
parade…we don’t do that here, it’s only Irish parades.”
That response shocked
me and made me laugh. If that is true
and doesn’t tell you just how Irish Clare is… I don’t know what does.
City Sign:
Clare’s city sign is a large brick sign on South Clare Avenue. It can be seen as soon as you get off the Clare exit from 127. It was very easy to park next to at the Clare Big Boy. It has two shamrocks on either side of Clare and a shamrock built into the brick at the top. There are two lights on the sign which must look amazing lit up at night. It has a flower bed at the bottom and has a special dedication to Senator Debbie Stabenow whose childhood hometown is Clare.
Other Awesomeness:
We had an amazing time in Clare all day Saturday. Jason and the kids dropped me off at Clare
High School and then drove the Bolt to a charger at Coyne Propane. They had a half mile walk from the charger to
downtown Clare while I ran. They got
breakfast at Cops and Doughnuts. I
called them and told them I would be a bit longer at the Pancake
Breakfast. That got Jason’s attention. He was still a bit hungry after eating a donut. The boys walked to the high school and met me
while I was eating alone.
After Jason got his breakfast, I saw that there was
a free kids race starting in 20 minutes.
I asked Luke, Ryan and Will if they wanted to run a half mile. Luke and Ryan were interested. Will wanted to
stay in the warmth and eat pancakes. By
the time I finished eating the kids race was just about to start. The kids took off outside. I went over and asked if Luke and Ryan had made
the cut for shirts. I was handed two
shirts. I ran out and gave the shirts to them as an extra layer before they
started. Ryan had his creeper hoodie
zipped up over his face. A boy on the
Clare Cross Country team commented to his coach about Ryan joking that the team
should wear creeper hoodies. It was
hilarious. Ryan didn’t last long running
with his face completely covered.
When they finished, kids got amazing small gold
medals that resembled Pot of Gold coins and large Shamrock cookies from J.T Bakers
in Clare. All fun run kids got the same
awesome race t-shirt. It was extremely
generous of Clare to give the kids so many nice things with free registration. We don’t know if Luke came in first place because
the one kid the came in in front of him may have been a leader for the kids. When the first kid came around the corner
adults started shouting, “First runner!!” ….followed by… “O that’s just Connor.” Luke was very fast coming in around three and
a half minutes. Ryan was not far behind
him. They both ran so fast the half mile
exhausted them. It was a great
race. The little girl dressed as a
Leprechaun stole everyone’s hearts.
We were one of the last five runners to leave the race as chairs
and tables were being put away. We were
thanked by race staff for coming out. I
returned the thank you for organizing a great race.
It was 11:25 when we left Clare High School to walk downtown to
the parade. The rain has thankfully stopped,
but it was still chilly outside. We got great seats on a vacant oversized bench. Clare’s downtown benches could fit seven people
comfortably. They were really nice. Jason used his poncho to give us dry
seating. Everything was soaked from the
morning rain. I had 20 minutes to get
food before the parade started. I left and
found a good truck with Irish fries and walking tacos. The parade got to us about three minutes
after I got back with food. Footloose
was playing loud in downtown Clare on my trip to get food. The Patty Wagon had great Irish Fries. I had never had fries with sauerkraut, thousand
island and corned beef. Jason is the
Irish one in the family and was not a fan of the Irish fries. He left the parade halfway through to find
his beloved Bacon on a Stick. I must
say, Bacon on a Stick was delicious. Jason
got me one and I ate the entire stick very quickly. It was insanely fatty and delicious and about
the amount of calories of a 5K.
The parade was the first St. Patty’s Day Parade any of us had
ever been too. It had a few amazing floats,
awesome decorated cars, a fantastic clown band from Scottsville and a great
hometown marching band. The kids got
lots of candy. Luke caught a shirt he yelled
to be thrown to him. It was a very long
parade that lasted almost an hour. The kids
really enjoyed it. We didn’t realize how
cold we had gotten watching the parade until the fun had ended.
Just as the last of the parade was coming through we booked it
over to Clare Middle School to check out the craft show The parade, craft show and Irish pizza buffet
were the three things on my to do list after reading the festival flyer the
night before the run. The craft fair was
the warmth we needed. It had started lightly
raining during the last 15 minutes of the parade. At the craft fair I found rock art that was so
much cheaper than the rock art I’ve seen in Metro Detroit, $7.00 versus $50.00. I got to meet the artist behind the work. Jason found a 3D printing artist that made
dice he liked and later bought. I found
an art tile of the Mackinac Bridge that was really beautiful and another tile
of ice photography at the Mackinac Bridge that looked very similar to the winter
night time artwork. They look awesome as
a pair on my running wall. We found a
gluten free St. Patty’s Day cupcake for Luke.
Everything was so inexpensive at the Clare Craft Show. It amazed us.
After leaving the craft show we walked in and out of Clare shops looking for the Leprechaun. Prizes were given to whoever found the Leprechaun as he moved around town.
There was an awesome rock shop called MI Rock Stop. It had the same glowing ultraviolet U.P rocks that the Galesburg rock shop had in addition to a room with snakes and tortoises, Clare Irish items and nerdy stuff.
55 had nicer quality expensive clothing. I didn’t expect to purchase anything from the store. I ended up finding Irish horseshoes painted by a local Clare woman. They were signed on the back, “Clare Irish Festive 2022.”
We went in a store called Apple Tree Lane that had an amazing sticker room. I haven’t seen old school sticker display like that in decades. There was an ornament wall behind the cash register that looked like it was taken out of Bronners. The owner was a very talkative nice woman. Surprisingly, we didn’t buy any stickers.
In total we spent around $50 for everything we got at the craft show and in downtown Clare. It was really reasonable and the things we got were amazing. We were unsuccessful in finding the Leprechaun in our store exploring. He looked pretty large in the pictures. We must have been in the wrong places.
The remainder of the day
was spent going to the second Irish Pizza Buffet at Buccilli’s Pizza and Clare
Raffle back at Cops and Doughuts. We got
to Buccilli’s at 3:50pm and were told we had the buffet start time wrong by a
half hour. It was later discovered our
waitress was mistaken and hot fresh pizzas starting rolling out. Jason and I miss Pizza Hut buffets. There is a Pizza Hut that still has them in
Indiana, but all Michigan Pizza Hut’s that are left no longer have the infamous
pizza buffet. I went to Pizza Hut buffets
frequently as a kid with my dad. So
frequently the waitress knew us by name in Plymouth. It was awesome to be back at a pizza buffet
again. A little too awesome for me as I
kept trying a slice of almost every pizza that came out. The green crust pizza was so cool! Luke could not get a green pizza, but they
did have gluten free crust.
We decided to purchase ten raffle tickets for the cash raffle. A ticket for each of us, each pet and the
random groundhog that lives under our shed (to make an even ten). Three cash prizes were set to be drawn at
6:00pm at Cops and Doughnuts. We went
back and sat in Cops and Doughnuts waiting. It was only our family and a single older woman sitting in Cops and Doughnuts
when the raffle tickers were pulled. I
wish the older woman had won. She was someone’s
grandmother waiting for a miracle.
We may not have won the Irish Festival’s Cash Raffle, but we did
place third place in the Irish Pet Photo Contest. Pet contest winners were announced on Facebook
at the same time as the cash raffle. We
won $25 in Clare Cash for Maurice’s Irish photo. I was accurate in my pickings for winners,
minus the cow, which shocked me. I had a
great time making costumes for Bean, Corky and Maurice. It was very hard making kilts out of thin
green and purple streamers, but they came out better than I thought they were going
to. Pictures for the contest were due at
3pm on Thursday. When I started working,
I had exactly three hours to make kilts, setup and get the picture for the
contest. It was my fastest costume production. I liked the change of making a costume for
someone else other than myself.
Ready for a short and sweet electric car story?
We brought the Bolt to Clare!
Clare had a charger a half mile from downtown. Jason dropped me off at the high school and
drove to the charger with the kids. With
the festival having so many activities it kept us busy without needing to drive
anywhere for hours. Our car was charged
enough to drive home by 4:00. At that
time we were just getting to the Irish Pizza Buffet and still had the raffle to
watch at 6pm. It was a completely different
day compared to last week in New Baltimore.
It makes a world of difference when there is an electric charger near a
run that is available. It helped a lot
to have so many things to keep us busy.
I was relieved that taking the electric car to Clare saved us so much gas
money and that we didn’t have to charge in Jackson at four in the morning on
the way home.
It was a great day in Clare for the whole family. The kid’s favorite part was the parade and
the pizza buffet. Ryan felt like it was
a prolonged birthday celebration of his St. Patty’s Day birthday.
Course Rating: 4.2 Stars
Post-Race Food Rating: 5 Stars
Swag Rating: 4 Stars
Awards Rating: 5 Stars
Race Execution: 5 Stars
Restroom Rating: 5 Stars
Clare Irish Festival Road Races Quote:
“You will never know what worse luck your “bad luck” has saved
you from.”
–
Cormac McCarthy.
Comments
Post a Comment