R and J in the USA

When we went to register for our Pennsylvania 5K 2 days before the race, we ran into what was now becoming a slightly familiar experience. We had missed the registration window. 

We had become spoiled over 49 prior races, oftentimes being able to wait until the last minute to register. Early in the trip, we tried to sign up for races days, weeks, or even a full month ahead of time. By the end of the trip, we were favoring flexibility to allow us room for the unknown to show up in a somewhat fluid itinerary. We had had a handful of races that we had registered for in the earlier days that we weren’t able to participate in thanks to unexpected itinerary changes. 

Our Alabama race had been our first time running into a registration window deadline, and here we were running into it again for our Pennsylvania race. There were some last minute itinerary puzzles to put together. Once we thought he had finally put the pieces in place, we had an itinerary where the Bruce Hollenbaugh Memorial 5K in Biglersville, PA on Sunday, April 13th would fit in just perfectly with all of the other moving parts. So, when we went to register on Friday evening and found no registration button, Julie made an audible, “Ruh, roh.”

Among the many things we have found over the course of this trip, we have found that, people like to be part of this adventure and, as long as it is done with respect, it never hurts to ask for something that might help us out. 

So, we decided to roll the dice and reach out to the race director just to see what might be possible. 

After we sent out that request, we got to work planning an alternate itinerary, just in case we didn’t hear back. If we couldn’t do the Biglersville race, we’d have to do some significant rearranging. We went to bed with a decent alternative in place. By the time we woke up, we started to get really sold on our new itinerary. That’s when we saw the email from Ashley indicating that, not only were they willing to let us into the race, they were really excited to have us there! Well, it was settled, Biglerville, here we come!

We were bowled over from the word go at how warmly they welcomed us when we arrived. For us, we deserved no more attention and were just grateful that they were going to let us participate. When we arrived, Kristi, the other race director was there to greet us. She had a specially prepared set of swag bags and race bibs for us along with a big smile. 

When we crossed the finish line, one of the members of the family for whom the memorial race was in honor came up to us and said with a warm and welcoming smile, “Are you the bloggers!?” She continued on to express to us her gratitude to us for being there. We found ourselves feeling on the wrong end of the gratitude pathway. It was them that did a favor for us, after all. But the love and generosity coming our way continued.  

Kristi and Ashely were there and continued to heap it on. We didn’t have much time to stick around for the post race activities as our itinerary would have us in Philadelphia in a few hours. They insisted, before we leave, that we head back towards the market area because they had a gift for us. A gift for us?! We thought. We had both just been thinking if we should run and grab a gift to give to them for their generosity in welcoming our participation. We certainly didn’t expect to receive one. Before we were even done thinking about what we might give them, they had placed a huge gift basket in our hands. Once again, we found ourselves feeling on the wrong end of the gratitude pipeline. 

It was very clear that these are simply the kind of people they are. Never ones to take for granted anyone’s contributions or presence. We were quite certain that they were the ones doing us a favor, yet here they were generously thanking us. 

The quality of their character continued to show as they eagerly and sincerely solicited feedback on the race from us. As people that now had 50 races in 10.5 months under our belts, they thought we might have some insight as to how they might improve their race coordination. They told us that this was their first time organizing a 5K and were eager to receive feedback so they could improve it in future years. At this point in the exchange of kindnesses, we desperately wanted to give them helpful feedback to be able to return the generosity. Unfortunately, they did SUCH a great job organizing their first race that we found ourselves hard pressed to offer any criticism at all. 

We so wanted to even out the scales of generosity and went right back to the van and typed up a long analysis of race organization and every little thing we could think of to comment on what they did that they did so right and to scrape teeny little things out of the nooks and crannies that they could potentially improve upon. We figured it was the least we could do. We were never so disappointed to have nothing critical to say! 

But, their eagerness to hear it was clear evidence of why it was so hard to offer. These are people that have high standards and the ability to live up to them. These are people that clearly take care in what they do and take care of the people that they do those things with. It was clear from the love and heart in the speeches before the race, to the community of people and community members thanked and present that helped put it on, to the beauty of the Hollabaugh Orchard and the market store where the race was being hosted, to the generosity and eagerness to learn and improve of the race directors, that we were among the best kind of people. We found ourselves hard-pressed not to get a bit sentimental about the reason we are doing this trip to begin with and the reason we write about the people we meet along the way. This goodness, this hard work, this community, this generosity, amidst all the other gunk and craziness that is also there, it is these kinds of people and communities pulling together to grow food and support each other through the good times and the bad, if we can be so bold as to say, that is the heartbeat of America. This is the heartbeat that we have wanted to travel through, interact with and run alongside.

When you are in interactions where it is hard to tell who deserves the gratitude and appreciation because there is so much mutual giving and receiving going on, you know you are in good company. This is the type of soil where good things grow.