More than Meats: The Hatfield 5 and Dime

Race Date: 4/10/11
Location: Hatfield, PA
Weather: Elephant Gray
Distance: 5 or 10 miles
Postrace spread: tomato pie, bagels and cream cheese, bananas
Calves: Light Ivory
What I Baked Afterwards: Mint Cookies-and-Cream Brownies

If you live in eastern Pennsylvania, you probably think Hatfield is the home of Hatfield Quality Meats--because it is. But as I found out last weekend, its also so much more. For one thing it's home to a fabulous water slide:

It's also, for the second year, the host to the Hatfield 5 and Dime, a blissfully flat 5- or 10-miler that raises money for improvements to the community's parks. This year, the money will go to a cause near and dear to all runners--public restrooms.

The course consists of a five-mile loop; it's up to you to decide mid-race if you're going to run it once or twice. I'd planned on doing the 5-mile race, but as I approached the split point, my legs still felt improbably fresh. Fueled by a new sense of optimism--as well as the chorus of Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down the Dream," which had been pulsing though my brain for the past 34 minutes (well played, Mr. Start-Line DJ)--I decided to bypass the finish line and trot out for another round.

Just kidding.

Like many races, the 5 and Dime puts on a Health and Safety Fair. The displays on various ailments are a wonderful tool to educate athletes on the importance of a healthy lifestyle--and, I've always suspected, a sneaky way of ensuring we don't take too many packets of cream cheese at the post-race celebration. (Those things cost money, you know.) Anyway, certain elements are common to most health fairs, and this one did not disappoint. There were energy drinks with inscrutable labels:

And creepy mannequins with mildly inappropriate signage:

This particular booth was being helmed by a high-school-age girl, which I appreciated--being a former high-school-age, female creator of inappropriate signage myself.

After we'd all eaten our fill of tomato pie and bagels (taking care to go easy on the cream cheese), it was time to give out the door prizes, via randomly drawn bib numbers.

Just as I was congratulating myself on not winning the gift certificate to the local version of Chuck E. Cheese, I heard my number called. I had won...an at-home CPR instruction kit from the local visiting nurses' association.

Yes, that's right. I now have a creepy mannequin of my very own--complete with spare lung!

Party's at my place next weekend.

 All I can say is, the next time I take a photo of something at a race to make fun of it on the Internet, I'm going to choose a different subject--like really expensive shoes.