Yes, that is me triumphantly crossing the finish line at the end of the Dogfish Head 5k! It doesn't look like i'm running because I wasn't. This actually wasn't the finish line; it is to the right of the picture. I had already crossed it and stopped running but Alex was a bit late with the picture. And here's my time:
Phew, cut off about 10 minutes from my previous best. Just kidding! I took that picture later in the day. There were people also running a 10k that morning and some took a little longer than expected. We watched some roll in way after the hour and a half mark.
I was happy because I only did a little worse than Alex, which was way better than I hoped to run. I didn't really care how long it took me though. I wasn't there to race, just to have fun.
The beer started flowing at 9am sharp and I felt like I was back in college. When else would you:
1) run a race and then immediately drink some beers
2) start drinking at 9am... drink some beers while eating breakfast cereal (milk? riiight)
3) use beer as motivation to do something
Well, maybe some people still do that.
There were a lot of good beers on tap: 60 minute, punkin ale, indian brown ale, my antonia, and lawnmower. The beer never ran out even though there were nearly 3,000 people in attendance. That's a well planned event!
A local Bethany Beach band, Reedo and the Front Porch Offering, played the after party and they were cool guys. Alex and I didn't win any awards for our times, but those who did got some cool stuff!
However, there was a raffle and even though we didn't win that either, a bunch of the winners had either left already or did not hear the raffle winners being announced. They started picking random numbers and people from the crowd to take the prizes. Alex had removed his race number and held it up in the air as a joke, but Sam, the Dogfish Head owner, saw it and gave him a wink. Then surprise! A few raffle winners later, they called Alex's number. Alex went up and got a nice man-hug from Sam (I hear he has a tight grip) and won a vintage bottle of Fort beer, which is brewed with raspberries and is the most expensive large bottle they sell. I didn't get a picture of Alex and Sam, but the event photographer took one so hopefully it will be online eventually!
While everyone else was waiting in the long beer lines, we decided to walk up to the brewery to check out the store. I had asked a volunteer earlier about the brewery tours, and she essentially told me that the tours had been booked months in advance. I was disappointed but what can you do?
The people in the store were a bit more knowledgable though. Actually, they were the people who gave the tours and I asked the right one! He said the first tour was about to go out so we hopped to the front of the line and away we went. We were lucky because the other 3 tours were packed once people found out what was going on. We saw the boiling room, the fermenting room, and got a history of the brewery. We both really loved the show Brewmasters so it was cool to see everything in person. However, like most things, it is very different than on tv. For instance, the brewery is in the middle of a neighborhood in a tiny town. And if you ask about what happened to the show, they aren't very pleased (they say it was forced off the air by "big beer" advertisers, which I believe.)
My favorite part of the tour was the fermentation room. Several beers are aged in wooden barrels, like Palo Santo. Most are aged in oak, but the Palo Santo is aged in Palo Santo wood shipped in from South America and the barrel cost $150,000! No, they do not ever replace the barrels. "They're not making wine here!"
At the end of the tour, we bought some hard to find beers at prices that were slightly lower than retail. I highly recommend this race! It was a ton of fun and a great event to make a weekend out of. We plan to attend next year, and Alex has hopes to run the 10k. I think I'll just stick with the 5er for now.
**Fun fact from the tour: the more flavor a beer has, the more calories. DFH World Wide Stout has 666 calories per bottle!! (Oh yeah, it's also $30 for a 4 pack)**
