Vista Strawberry Festival Run

I had a banana hang-​over the week before, so a different type of fruit was nice. Lol.
It was a simple run around the town. Nothing fancy. You get a bag of strawberries once you finish in addition to your medal. I would have preferred a crown made out of strawberries, but that’s a different story. jk.
Afterwards, there was a Strawberry Festival. I loved how they really made the effort to have everything strawberry themed. I wish I was able to stay longer to enjoy the food — strawberry pizza pie, deep fried strawberries, strawberry lemonade, or anything to make me poop strawberries out of my brain. Oh well, next year. :)

What an awesome local run close to home (my home at least!) The turn-​out and the run itself were both pretty impressive and so down to earth! The course wasn’t too hilly nor twisty –and my terrible knees are so grateful! It was neat having such a good chunk of Vista shut down for us runners!
The starting line DJ got us plenty pumped and since it was the Sunday before Memorial Day when this run occurred, we stood with respect for our servicemen and women prior to GO-​time. Love it! We started at The Wave Water park right off of Vista Village Dr and more or less circled around to Main Street, the «downtown» area where the Strawberry Festival takes place (by the Avo theater and all those great brewing companies and eateries).
The finish-​line festivities are where I docked this run a star. It was a bit disorganized. Get your picture snapped the minute you hit the finish line, have your time counter removed from your shoe, and retrieve your finisher’s medal. Easy enough. BUT WAIT, there’s more… If you wanted to pick up some strawberries and other free breakfast snacks, you needed to jump in one immensely long line. IF you wanted to have your photo taken with a cool backdrop and fun cardboard posters saying silly things like“I finished, where’s my beer?” you had to hop into another crazy, long line. And, had you been me and not picked up your Swag bag at the pick-​up location the day before, you then found yourself in a third line of lengthy proportions! And all these lines going on at once had people questioning which one they should be standing in and for what purpose. So hectic!
I liked that us over 21 runners got free beer post 3.1 miles of running; That’s my kind of breakfast! The wait for the a drink wasn’t bad!
Definitely going to run this one again!

This Strawberry Run is sweet!
C’mon, strawberries, free strawberries – farm-​fresh, sun-​ripened, heart-​shaped, and vitamin C-​packed – applaud your 5k/​10k finale! After all, this celebratory race, coursing first through the WAVE Waterpark and soaring then around Vista’s Kite Sculptures, ends within Vista’s Strawberry Festival itself. I mean, bananas and apples are wonderful, but strawberries after your run… C’mon. =]
But it’s not just that…
Vista’s chip-​timed run awards everyone finisher medals, performance t-​shirts, goodie bags, and even more fresh fruit. There’s free beer for runners 21+ (Vista’s own Prohibition Brewing Co.‘s «Dirty Blonde» and «Extra Pale Ale» were winners!), cash prizes for placers, free Rubio’s tacos coupons, live music, and festival vendors in the hundreds. Upon finishing your fun run, you have every reason to stay awhile, relax, people watch, and enjoy the sunshine.
So that’s just exactly what we did.
In my division: 10^th of 30
Overall place: 254 of 988
Time: 29:32:6
=]

My first 5k. Not too hard. Only complaint was the lack of trash cans in the runners area. Overall simple easy event.

OK due to unforeseen circumstances so I was unable to participate in this 5K race.
However, I still wanted the event t-​shirt (It’ll keep me motivated to keep running, OK?! LOL) and so I e-​mail Kinane events regarding the shirt. Rebecca responded the same day, requested my e-​mail address, and before I knew it I had the shirt.
OK.OK.I know it’s just a shirt but they didn’t have to respond to my e-​mails, heck, the race was over and they already had my $ 30 for registration. BUT, they were nice enough to still send the shirt!