This past February 13th LVRR hosted its Superbowl Tailgate Trot 10k for the first time in two years when Covid first began integrating into our vernacular. This year’s race committee worked for months to put all the pieces in place, talking with various City officials to ensure our event would be safe. As volunteers and runners began showing up on race morning, despite the snow from the night before and even though it was still snowing, the mood at the clubhouse was tangible with excitement to toe the line.
387 runners signed up to run with us and 289 showed up to run the race. As race directors, we base our success on how many people show up and these were good numbers, and our largest field size of any race since February 2020 when our last 10k was held and 527 runners finished. It feels like we are finally moving in a positive direction amidst this soon-to-be-endemic coronavirus chaos. We are looking forward to our upcoming Emmaus 4 Mile Classic and St. Luke’s Half weekends.
As always, our volunteers were the key to our success. Without their assistance, their spunk, their excitement, our races could not safely take place. As they stand at their spots along the course waiting to point runners in the right direction, or directing cars where to park, or tending our fires in the wintertime, dressed warmly in their cold weather gear, we recognize their generosity in giving their time to help make each of our events a success. For this reason we began our Volunteer Incentive Program to not only encourage volunteerism, but reward it as well.
We saw a multitude of smiles on our runners’ faces while on the course — and an easy course this is not. That long incline as you climb out of the park in the first mile and then turn onto Lehigh Parkway East will definitely wake you up. And soon you’re once again climbing into the neighborhood above the Parkway. 10-kilometer races are challenging in and of themselves but throw in those hills and now you’ve got yourself a challenge.
We are grateful to Keystone Running Store for hosting our bib pickup once again this year, and also for donating gift certificates for our age group awards which went three deep in each category. We’d also like to thank Lowkey the Vision for the race photos this year. We think that they really captured how much fun this day really was.
Thank you, for joining us, for supporting us and for being a part of this awesome running community in the Lehigh Valley. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming events in the next few months.