Team Galloway Long Island set EventPower LI’s Riverhead Rocks as a “suggested” race for 2019. The timing was perfect. We scheduled the Bridgehampton Half Marathon in May as our goal race, so getting in the 10 miles at the end of March worked out well for us.
Four of the Nassau County members — Ray, Didi, Christine and me — drove out to Riverhead together. There, we met other teammates, Monica, Jim, Colleen, Jon, Jackie and Dawn.
The Race Started….
Terry, the race announcer, said the race was starting and we ran off. Many of us stayed in the back. We were using this run as a practice run.
The first two miles on the road went fast. Before we knew it, we were in the Riverhead trails. Jackie, Christine and I were running together. We lost Didi and Dawn along the way and Colleen was so far ahead of us, we couldn’t catch her.
In the trails…
When we got into the trails, it was simply beautiful. I love trail running. I just need to get the right shoes because the Skechers I was running in didn’t work as well as I had hoped. A few times, I almost fell. But, thankfully, I didn’t.
Coming off an injury, I hadn’t run in almost 6 weeks. I ran an 8-mile run a few weeks ago and then a 3 mile run last week but that was it. So I was unsure about whether or not I would be able to handle this race.
The trails were marked well, except for one spot where there were two arrows – one pointing in one direction and one pointing in the other direction. Jackie turned to me and said, “which way?”
Being directionally challenged…
I’m directionally challenged. However, I saw about a bunch of people who were in front of us running in one direction, so I said,” let’s follow them.”
I’m not sure if we should have done that, but we did come to the larger loop and did that one, then did another smaller loop. We ran three loops. Along the way, we saw Ray, John, Monica, Jim and Dawn. It’s always so much fun to see people you know on the course!
We saw Noah and Irene Lam at a water stop. It was awesome to see them! Then, we hit the road back to the finish line.
The After-Party…
The after-party at Jerry and the Mermaid Restaurant was amazing! Free beer, free food and coffee. And you should have seen the spread! It was incredible — Eggs, French Toast, Bagels, Fruit. It was such a nice surprise.
I loved seeing so many of my teammates and friends at the after-party, including: Nigel, John G., Christa, Vicki E., and so many other Long Island Triathletes/Runners. I love this community!
Vicki Ventura and her team at EventPower LI did another amazing job organizing and coordinating this race. Between the cool swag (btw, I love the women’s t-shirt), to the afterparty, it was a great morning with friends!
