Race for the Cure Great Adventure Recap

Have you ever done a race so many times that you arrive on race day with grand expectations? The Race for the Cure has always been one of my favorite races. It was my very first 5k, and this year was my 6th year running it. I almost failed because of Hurricane Joaquin, and the crazy weather. And then I remembered all of the great companies handing out swag, all of the fun entertainment before the race, and all of the food before and after the race. It was always a great time!
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at great adventure and they directed me to a different parking lot. It was a much smaller lot and it's usually were the race started and ended. I figured that this was because they had made a new route for the race, which included running through the Safari. I was super excited about running through the Safari, so I didn't mind the craziness of a new parking lot.

I could see right away that things were different this year. There were no tents for the teams, and there are very few tense for companies that are usually there. I am so glad I brought my own granola bar because this year there were no companies handing out yogurt, granola bars, or any other food for that matter. I did eventually find a representative from ShopRite who was handing out water bottles and mini muffins.

Ford was also there handing out their Ford cares scarves and of course Komen was there and they had a wheel to spin where you can choose a scarf or a collapsible water bottle.

After a lot of searching, I finally found the registration tent, which had no signs to let you know where you should go if you had pre registered or if you need to register on site. It was one long line that you had to stand on regardless of whether you had registered early or not. This was super frustrating, because a lot of people had it registered, and  I had to wait on line behind them for my turn to go to the table if you had already registered. Ugh! 

It was finally my turn, and I gave my name and my daughters name and they handed me two bibs with 2015 on them. I pointed out that I was a runner, and they said that everyone was getting the same babe this year, with no timing chip, because they were not Timing the event. At this point I was super frustrated because I had paid $35 for registration and I definitely wasn't getting what I expected. 

I headed over to the stage, where I took most of the pictures above, and danced for almost an hour, since I didn't need that time to visit the different tables I had plenty of time to dance. They had a great DJ, who really got the crowd going, and they had the survivors parade which was very emotional for everyone involved. Finally my daughter and her friends arrived, and we all decided that since it wasn't and we would just walk the whole thing and have a good time.

The course was very well marked, and there were plenty of volunteers to let you know where to go for the 5k and the one mile distance. You could see quite a few animals but you had to walk pretty far to get to them and it was very muddy, so we didn't get any pictures. We had a lot of fun, laughed and joked a lot, and finished in a little over an hour. We would have gone faster, but there were lots of Teams walking together and they were spread out so wide across that you couldn't get around in most situations.

As we were getting to the finish line, I started thinking about how delicious the apples and the granola bars would be, and I started getting hungry. Imagine my surprise when, as we crossed the finish line, we weren't handed so much as a bottle of water. No one from the race was really cheering for anyone, and there was not much in the way of support. After you walked through the finish line, there were no tables full of food, no water bottles, not even a small cup of water. So disappointed. I will not be returning next year.