Pages

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Food at the Watermelon 5K

Last weekend (July 4), I ran in another 5K race in Winter Park. This one was called the Watermelon 5K. It started in Mead Gardens, then left the park and went through some of the surrounding neighborhoods. The race passed very close to where the route of the last 5K went, and then eventually returned to Mead Gardens and ended.
Start
running
running
Runners
Since I paid money to run in this race, I made sure I ran the 3.1 miles somewhat faster than normal. Paying money to run is silly in my opinion, but I keep on getting talked into running in these races anyway. I normally can run 3.1 miles in about 25 or 26 minutes, but today I ended up getting about 24:30. There was no official time, so I am interpolating the time from these two pictures I took of the finish line, just before and after I crossed.
Finish Line
Time
And the food came after the race was over! The first thing I grabbed was a bottle of Whole Foods brand water out of this kiddie pool.
Water
Then I drank a cup or two of this mystery colored drink. I'm assuming it was some sort of powdered Gatorade type drink that was mixed in the Crystal Water bottles.
Gatorade in Crystal Water Bottles
Gatorade
Bananas came after the drinks.
Bananas
Since this was the Watermelon 5K, watermelon slices were also given out. I normally don't like watermelon all that much, but after running it's normally sweet juice tasted really bitter to me and I ended up only finishing half of my slice.
Watermelon
Watermelon
They put on a watermelon eating contest to compete with Nathan's hot dog eating contest. Grand prize was a watermelon, hat, and a watermelon shaped wine glass.
Watermelon Eating Contest
Making my way around to all of the vendors that set up tents giving out free samples and trying to sell their products to the runners, I ended up with a smoothie sample and an acai berry energy drink from Planet Smoothie, a bag of dog food, a Track Shack towel, and a backpack from a lawyer.
Free Stuff
Several years ago I ran in a few of these 5K races, and bagels were given out after each race. This is the second 5K I have run in recently, and there are no bagels. I don't know what the reason behind this is, but I know that after I go running, I always crave some carbs, so I find the lack of bagels disappointing.

There were big crowds of sweaty people in the area surrounding the finish line of the race.
Sweaty People
So I decided to take a walk through the emptier areas of Mead Gardens. On a sign, I came across this really big Lubber Grasshopper. I hear they are good eating, especially when chocolate covered!
Grasshopper
I have no plans at the moment to run in another 5K race when I can run at home for free, but who knows. I may be talked into doing another one, but looking at the upcoming races in Orlando, I think my choice would be to do a 10K. This 10K in particular. Free Epcot Food & Wine Festival samples after the race!

2 comments:

  1. nice! that looks like fun, i might try that epcot one out haha

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mmmmm...nothing better than watermelon in the summertime! I'm not a big fan of the seeds, though.

    ReplyDelete