This revamped version of the Red Baron Half Marathon has been a very interesting concept developed by our board president. And adding a 5k route has really spiced things up. This is no average race event. These courses are not for the faint of heart.

The half marathon course is extremely hilly. Especially for a road race. I would bet there are very few if any road races that have this type of course layout and elevation profile. The race opens up with a loop around the Corning Community College campus and out onto the roads that then almost immediately begin to descend. That descent is steep in the outset. And continues for over a mile. Then runners immediately climb right back up that hill they just descended. And follow that up with a hilly course on the way back to the loop course finish. And they have to finish on an uphill to the finish line. The total elevation gain is around 1500 ft.

To give a little perspective, when I am trying to train for challenging trail races I am looking to average 100 ft of gain per mile over the course of the run. And that is not always easy to find on a given route. This course, on a road race mind you, had more elevation gain per mile than that.

And the best part about it is that people love it and keep coming back. We even had a good number of day of registrations. I love seeing people take on a difficult course like this. Most runners are looking for a flat and fast half marathon course so they can try to PR. This is not that. This is a race that is for a totally different experience.

And to top it off we had to club members make this their first ever half marathon. I find that completely amazing. Taking on your first half marathon is a big enough challenge and doing it on the hardest course I have seen is epic.

Last year I focused my race photography on the half marathon steep descent. Then I went out to ride bike support. This year I was not in good enough shape to bike this course. It is a hard run and a hard ride. So I focused on the photography.

One of the things I have always loved about this event is that it runs along some very scenic areas. And mix in those fall colors and boom. Great photo opportunities. And we had bright sun most of the day.

Even on road races I am looking to take photos with the most scenic aesthetically pleasing background that I can. And I think I found a great spot for this race in the opening stages.

I set up right on the edge of the CCC campus where the runners would head out onto the public roads. This gave the runners enough time to spread out a little bit so I could mostly get individual photos. The runners sped down the hill and out towards town and I was able to capture some great images that the runners will hopefully enjoy.

After the half marathon runners passed by I stayed in place to wait for the 5k runners. They were following the same initial path. Soon enough the 5k runners were flying my way.

I decided to stay int he same general area to wait for the 5k runners to return to the finish line as they would be running an out and back style course and would return via mostly the same route.

I adjusted my position a little moving to an area where eI could photography the runners as they entered the CCC campus and made their way towards the finish line. And I could get multiple shots of them from different distances on the approach.

One thing I could see as I photographed the runners making their way towards the finish line was how hard this 5k course was. I had no previous experience with the 5k side of this event. And I have only ever run very few 5k’s at max speed. But I could not imagine hard deep the runners had to dig to drive up the hill towards the finish at the end of a 5k. The last thing I would want to see at that point of a 5k is a hill of any sort. But the runners here were pushing through. And one of the best things was the spectator standing across the way for me cheering on all the runners and encouraging them to keep going.

As the 5k was finishing up I decided to walk the half marathon course in reverse. That would allow me to catch any 5k runners still on the course as well as find the lead runners of the half. I don’t really like to sit still and the idea of staying where I was and waiting for the runners seemed boring to me.

Also, if I walk the course and find interesting backgrounds and locations for photos and then keep moving to find more runners it is almost like each runner gets their own personalized race photo. The 5k is too bunched up to do that. But with the runners being spread out over a half marathon distance there is more time to move and find good spots for photos. And even with that the runners came in waves where several runners would end up photographed in the same spot. Every time I would start to walk I would see another runner approaching and go back to where I was because that was the best spot for a photo.

In all I took over 3,000 photos. And they actually ended up pretty evenly split between the 2 races. I really try to get photographs of every participant. And for this event most people have photos from the beginning and the end of the event. I hope everyone enjoys the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.

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