Today, I had the pleasure of running the Born to Run race, put on by the Freehold Area Runners Club. The race ended up being short of the 5 miles, but more on that later. Although some people may disagree, I felt the weather was great—no heat or humidity. It was a little cool/cold, but great running weather overall.
This was my first time running this race since I’ve only been in the area for about a year and a half. I would definitely do it again. The race started out in downtown Freehold and ran through some streets. This is where the first problem occurred: we turned left onto a town street because we were following the leaders. However, we soon got word that this was the wrong turn, so everyone went about a block and turned around.
The course was rolling (picture some hills), and I enjoyed the up-and-down nature of the streets. We entered the park, which was gravel—very easy on the feet. After winding through the park, we came back onto the streets again.
This is when I realized we had a problem. The clock at mile 4 read that I had run 3.6 miles. As I crossed the finish line, I knew my time was off—it would have been a personal best! But my Garmin only showed 4.6 miles. Cooling down, I asked a few other runners if they had come up short on the distance, and they all said yes. They mentioned that last year, they were in the park for a longer stretch.
All in all, I really enjoyed the race. A bonus was the swag at packet pickup. Instead of a shirt, we were given a really nice sweatshirt, and at the finish, we received a medal and a cup. I would definitely recommend this race!
Don
