This morning it was off to Wareham, Massachusetts for Grumpy’s Cranberry Harvest 5K Run. Cool, fall temperatures were certainly present and frost was on the grass which meant it was time to bundle up a bit more for the run.

The race takes place on the grounds of cranberry grower A.D. Makepeace. All proceeds from the race benefit the Cranberry Educational Foundation and the race is held in memory of Robert “Grumpy” Conway, a longtime A.D. Makepeace Company employee and nature-lover who passed away in 2010.

The course is an absolute gem and one of the more beautiful runs that I have run in a while. The race takes runners around the A.D. Makepeace grounds and is a cross-country style run where runners run on compact dirt, grass and right alongside the cranberry bogs. The frost was present on a couple shady parts but the morning was absolutely brilliant. While running past one of the cranberry bogs workers were out on the bogs harvesting the cranberries and throughout the course there were signs with interesting facts about cranberries, cranberry consumption and more. A nice, challenging uphill finish caused you to want to empty the tank at the end of the run to make it up the hill.

Post-run there was fruit, water, dried cranberries and cranberry juice available and winners took home trophies and crates of cranberries. The race swag included a great tee-shirt with the Grumpy logo above on it, a whole bag of cranberries, cranberry juice and a few other items. A cranberry themed race through and through!

I felt good on the run this morning and despite it being a trail run which can tend to slow me down I ran pretty strong throughout the run. Finished Grumpy’s Cranberry Harvest 5K with a time of 24:24, good for 7:51/miles.