April 19, 2025
It was a rainy Saturday morning in Geneva, NY, for the Three Brothers Spiked Apple 5K. The pleasant, 65-degree temperature dropped ten ticks in the hour before the race, but the cold, gray morning was warmed and brightened by the sight of familiar faces.
This 51st race of our trip unfolded about an hour from our hometown, and Julie’s dad, sister, and nephew; Ryan’s mom and one of his sisters; and four of our friends made the trek to join us. We’ve met many great people with whom we’ve had great conversations in our previous 50 races on this trip. After ten and a half months on the road, though, it was nice to have those great people and great conversations be with some of the people we most care about. It was energizing and heartwarming. Traveling is great, but so is reunion.
The event raised funds for The Geneva Community Projects, a charitable corporation dedicated to building and renewing the strengths of the Geneva community through projects designed to promote the public good and uplift the human spirit.
The race ran a two-lap course through the vineyards of the Three Brothers Wineries and Estates in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. Though nestled on the slopes above 38-mile-long Seneca Lake, only 56 feet separated the course’s low and high points. 30 of those 56 feet were within a quarter mile of the start/finish line. This made for a downhill boost at the start, but an uphill drag at the finish.
The race meandered along slick, grassy equipment paths through rows of yet-to-blossom vines. The wet grass claimed multiple victims, with numerous runners taking mud slides as they cut some of each lap’s thirteen turns just a bit too sharply. While inglorious in the moment, those spills striped runners with muddy badges of honor. They wore that mud proudly as they crossed the finish line.
This was not the fastest of races, which is no surprise given the weather and the terrain. The overall winner came in at 21:37 – a 6:58 per mile pace. The top female finisher averaged a 7:30 per mile, crossing the line in 23:17.
Julie finished 146th of 540 overall, 62nd of 370 females, and 6th of 68 in her age group. Ryan finished 9th of 540 overall, 6th of 161 males, and 1st of 17 in his age group.
Detailed Race Report for Running Nerds
We both came into New York’s race feeling physically pretty good – tired from 10.5 months on the road and 49 States plus 1 District of Columbia worth of races on our legs, but well rested and ready to go.
Mentally, however, we were not just pretty good – we were both pretty pumped. There was a lot to be excited about and we both were feeling it.
There was the thrill of the accomplishment of state race #50. This was it. The finish line of finish lines! In some ways, we were just there for the next race, but, there was no question that the feel of, oh my gosh, we are about to cross the finish line of 5Ks in 50 States, was pumping through our blood at every point before, during and after the race.
Then there was the fact that after some 50,000 miles we were finally back on our home turf that gave us both a shot of some sort of endorphin. We had never run at the exact spot of our New York race before, but pretty darn close. As we entered our Harvest Host for the night the night before the race, for the first time on the trip, we had the experience of looking at the road in front of us and saying, “I remember running here before!”. That was a pretty neat homecoming. There is a locally well known and fairly epic race that takes place in the area that we had both run twice before. It actually happened to be that that particular race would be taking place the very next weekend after our New York 5K. It is called the Seneca 7 and it is a 7 person relay race around the 77.7 miles of Seneca Lake. Racers trade off the miles in rounds over the course of the journey around one of the Finger Lakes. It is so much fun and super popular. We can now say with a greater degree of confidence and maybe a bit more credibility that there is no place else in the country quite like the Finger Lakes region and it welcomed us home with all of its quintessential Finger Lakes charm – the rustic-chique wineries and breweries peppered through the miles, the shimmer of a sparkling-lake set against the backdrop of rolling green hills, the lines of grapevines in the vineyards that draped over the hills as they rise and fall – all coming together in the glow of Finger Lakes beauty. It was a glorious sight to behold – because it is beautiful in its own right and would land as such on new eyes. but also, because it was a beauty that said, welcome home travelers. We tried to take it all in with the perspective of visitors to see it in that pure way, undistorted by the lense of memory and familiarity and, thanks to this trip and the desire to be able to see it that way. we succeeded, which was a neat feeling. At the same time, we felt that unmistakable rush of home. The two feelings fused into something new and particularly lovely. It all made for a great head space to go for a run.
Last, and certainly not least, we were excited because of the faces we got to see. It is not that New York faces feel inherently more familiar. This was a set of particular faces that we were happy to see. Because we were running our race only an hour from our home, we sent out an evite to our friends and family the weekend before inviting anyone who was available and wanted to watch us cross our 50th state finish line to come join us for our personal milestone. As a result we got to see four of our dearest friends, Julie’s dad, sister and nephew and Ryan’s mom and one of his sisters, Shannon, that actually lives in New Jersey, but was luckily home for Easter. There is nothing quite like getting hugs from loved ones before a race and seeing their smiling faces on a race course cheering you along and being there to greet and celebrate you at the finish line. Seeing their smiling faces helping us celebrate this accomplishment and this milestone was a special treat.
And, while Ryan had seen his mother and some of our Rochester friends on his intermittent trips home, for Julie it had been 8 months since seeing any of these faces in person when we swung by Rochester on our way from Vermont to Ohio between state #10 and #11. Julie was pretty excited to get a bear hug from her Dad pre race (who is also one of our most dedicated blog readers – Hi Dad!)
So, our head space coming into the race was pretty great.
As for the race itself, despite plenty of April sun the day before and a forecast that predicted plenty more to come later in the day, the morning brought those infamous April showers. It went from warm and sunny to cold and rainy by the time the race got started. Just before the race it was raining pretty hard. We overheard more than one racer verbally shift their focus from trying to go for a fast run to surrendering to a slow run simply in the hopes of staying upright on a course that ran through vineyards on grass and gravel and plenty of dirt that was presently turning into mud. While we had both, at one point or another, hoped that we could really give it all and grab a fast race time for our final race, between tired bodies and muddy terrain, by the time we reached the starting line, we had both surrendered that this race would be more about staying upright, enjoying the views and savoring the moment than claiming any PRs, or anything close to them.
Ryan decided to run at a brisk jog. He wasn’t thrilled to run in the rain when the hard rain came, but by the time the race started, the rain had let up and it wasn’t so bad. He loved seeing all of the familiar faces that showed up and that buoyed him through the weather and the miles. He loved seeing our nephew on Julie’s side, Harley, at the turn around. The race course was grassy, uneven and a little slick. With a brisk jog, he ran faster than casual, but never at a pace where it got too bad. Because he wasn’t too focused on running fast, he really took in the setting. He loved running through the vineyards and getting to enjoy the view of the lake in the distance. When the race started on a downhill, he had been anticipating difficulty at the end of the race because of an uphill finish, but it wasn’t bad at all. After seeing a handful of people wipe out on the muddy turns, he made sure to take the turns carefully. Overall, the race was an enjoyable experience and though he was running without tremendous effort, he still clocked in at a very respectable 24+ minutes.
Julie had a similar race experience, though her casual jog resulted in a much slower time at just past 33 leisurely minutes. After being pretty sure that her goose was good and cooked a handful of races prior, and with this being our last race, Julie entered the race fully focused on the savoring approach and had zero plans to run hard – not even a little bit. That might seem like an attitude not worthy of a race, but, over the course of 50 races, Julie had learned a lot about the different ways to run 5K and the different types of goals worthy of pursuit. One of her biggest lessons over the miles was specifically about how to value restraint as a valuable tactic when that was what was called for, despite any temptation to always run hard. For this race, her entire running goal was keeping her heart rate under 160. It’s not a sexy goal, but, for her, it was huge and felt pretty triumphant to achieve despite the rolling hills. It was nice to run a race and feel no pain. So, even though that is not usually what racing is about, it was specifically Julie’s goal for state race #50. And, even though this was a 5K and 5K races are generally considered short races where the pain quotient is high because you only have to endure it for so long, in reality, this was the end of an endurance race and Julie ran it that way. She is very much looking forward to being back in shape where she can tackle a race and let it hurt so good, but, for now, it wasn’t worth the cost and she decided to go all in on the savoring approach. The one thing Julie hadn’t considered in her race approach that was a very different factor of this race, was that there was a crew of family and friends that she would be keeping waiting at the finish line. Julie came in almost a full 10 minutes after Ryan. Oops. But, regardless of the extra chill she put her dedicated family and friends through, for her, the race itself was absolutely fantastic and exactly the race she wanted to be able to savor for this momentous occasion. Julie also saw more than a handful of people bite it on those slippery turns on the muddy course. And she loved seeing her nephew, Harley, and sister, Jennie, and our fellow runner-friend, Dave, cheering her on at the first turn. She loved seeing her sister-in-law, Shannon, at the midpoint turn around. She loved seeing them all and her father and mother-in-law and friends Erica, Nicole and Izzy cheering her over the finish line of finish lines. It was definitely a finish line of finish lines.
Before the race, Julie had emailed the race director to let them know about our trip and that this would be our 50th race. In our experience, when we have had the chance to let race directors know about our trip and that their race is one that we are including in it, they are excited to be a part of it. We figured the race director would like to know about this little event happening at their bigger event. What we didn’t know is that they would announce our accomplishment and, just as Julie crested the last turn and started tackling the final small hill to the finish line, she heard something over the loudspeakers that sounded like “50 states” and she figured it probably had something to do with us. It was pretty neat.
When we crossed the finish line, our friends and family told us, “They just announced that a ‘young couple’ just finished running a 5K in all 50 states.” We all laughed. Young couple? Nobody needs to fact check them. We’ll take it! Young at heart for sure.
We both crossed the finish line feeling accomplished, feeling great and feeling warmly welcomed home.
R and J in the USA 
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