Saturday, August 5
By Green Team captain Emma Kubitz
It was a fairly sleepy and overcast Saturday morning in Sleepy Hollow State Park (hence the name), but runners gearing up for the RF Events 2023 The Legend were anything but. We had appearances from many enthusiastic runners and even one special appearance from a friendly Macaw and its owners from the State Park campground! This race features 5-mile, 10-mile, and half marathon trail courses for participants, all ending with a custom wooden finisher’s medal handed out by RF Events volunteers. (And runners who also took part in Sunday’s trail bike portion got a special “Double Dare” award.)
There was a transportation glitch getting the Zero Waste gear on site, so the Green Team – Debbie and I – took up a reduced set of equipment that morning. But because The Legend is part of a cupless race series, we needed only one waste station set up near registration and the finish line. We later used contractor bags to cover park trash cans just past the finish line and the entrance to the park recreation area, making sure all waste was diverted to the Zero Waste Station.
The food provided to the racers included bananas, potato chips, mini cookies, and bottled water. We sorted out a fairly even amount of recycled and composted materials over the course of the race day. All the empty chip and cookie bags were collected to be recycled thanks to TerraCycle recycling programs. It makes me so happy to be able to save these from landfills because there always ends up being so many from hungry racers!
Other materials included lots of cardboard, tape, and aid station gallon jugs. We didn’t weigh what we collected because Jeff would weigh it all at the Sunday bike race. So we separated recycling and compost into separate bags and stacked all of the blue bins with waste on top of each other for easy transport. 🙂
Sunday, August 6: by Green Team captain Jeff Jackson
Saturday’s run took place in great weather. Sunday’s bike race, not so much. I was onsite nearly the same hours as Emma and Debbie on Saturday, but I bet I know who it felt longer for.
And yet, a few dozen souls – even kids – braved the rain and the muddy trails for 8, 16, or 24 miles on their bikes. (Or perhaps I should say, “Even adults.”)
Predictably, they got wet and muddy. But there was nary a complaint to be heard. Instead, the comments I heard were a consistent, “That was FUN!”
As for waste, there really wasn’t much to add, just more banana peels, chip bags, and some odds & ends. Not even much cardboard, since shirts were taken care of on Saturday. I did have some fun conversations with a few of the athletes waiting for their start.
The best part for me was after the race when I did final sorting and calculated the waste totals. Here’s the total landfill for the two days of the event. I’ll accept the idea that it’s a “legendary” result.
And special thanks to the RF staff who moved the Zero Waste equipment and Saturday’s collected waste to the Sunday start/finish, so I didn’t have to go retrieve it in the rain!
Happy Planet Running 