Great Pumpkin 5-K

   Every Fall, Mountain Fitness is proud to sponsor the Great Pumpkin 5-K and 1-Mile Walk at Watchung Lake. The race is a benefit for the Watchung Hills Municipal Alliance, and is the type of grass-roots, small-town event that makes running so much a part of the community fabric.
    Typically, the race attracts about 100 people, most of whom know each other. "Team Mountain Fitness" is always a big chunk of the participants, and this year we had 20 runners and walkers. The Rutgers Prep cross-country team had a bunch of people running this year, including the men's and women's individual winners. The high school kids brought a good energy, and certainly made the race more competitive!
   Held on the first Saturday in November, we've been lucky with the weather, and this year was no different: high 40's, sunny, and little wind. No one, including me, could use the weather as an excuse for a bad performance.
     The course starts on Stirling Road, near Water & Wine Restaurant. It winds on the back side of Watchung Lake, before it turns right onto Mountain Boulevard. After a flat, quarter-mile stretch on Mountain, the runners turn right again, up and back down Sunlit Drive.
     Sunlit is a long, gradual hill, at it's steepest on the bottom. Whatever time you lose up the hill, you need to make up on the way down. Altogether, Sunlit is a 1.1 mile stretch.
     Turning left back onto Mountain, the race ends with a near full lap back around the lake, with the challenging hill on Stirling coming with about a half-mile to go. The final quarter is a slight downhill,
 and the finish line is just past Mobus playground. Fairly challenging, but scenic, with the colors of fall around, and flat when your oxygen is just about depleted at the end!
    "Team Mountain Fitness" had three age-group gold medalists, and five award winners, overall. My time (22:50), was the exact time I ran last year. It's amazing what two Aleve can do for 59-year old knees!
    The runners all get a nice long-sleeve T-shirt, and, of course, free pumpkins. It's the final race on my 2017 calendar, and a good culmination for the running year. If you haven't run it before, please keep the Great Pumpkin 5-K in mind for next year. It's road racing, at it's purest!