Your Best Day Out
BUCKS COUNTY

By Susan Pajer, co-owner Training Zone Sports

If the steps of the Art Museum, the river drives and Valley Green are your regular training venues, it might be time to head out of town. Spending a day in Bucks County, a thriving multi-sport mecca, will put your heart-rate in zones you may not have seen for awhile.

Yes, you read that right -- Bucks County. Best known for its bucolic scenery, superb restaurants, eclectic shops and cozy neighborhoods, the area has become a multi-sport playground for suburbanites who now call it home. With triathlon bikes and running shoes in most every garage, the once-rural county has evolved into a sporting hub for families in the last 15 years.

Bucks County supports an established network of youth running and swimming programs, cycling clubs, running groups (too numerous to count), masters' swim programs and several multi-sport clubs. In addition, a community of medical sports professionals avidly supports this growing population. And if you've managed to reach adulthood without learning how to run, bike or swim, there are ongoing "newbie" clinics in the area to get you up to speed in all three disciplines.

No longer a well-kept secret, Bucks County has scenic, challenging and undulating terrain to test your lactate threshold settings on two wheels or two feet. With plenty of flexible pool time to work on your stroke and a year's worth of intriguing events to train for, your training log will be brimming with superlatives. There are some new events, too, for this year, including a kid's triathlon and a triathlon at Lake Nockamixon State Park.

Here are just a sampling of the race opportunities the locals have long-planned their training schedules around.

The year is kicked off by the Winter Race Series held in Tyler State Park, Newtown, adjacent to the campus of Bucks County Community College. The races are held most weekends throughout the winter. Distances vary, but the park always delivers a rolling course with events held in most weather -- often snowy. Points are tallied and champions are crowned at an awards banquet in early spring.

As the chilly temps slowly rise by mid-March, so does the intensity of the competition. Springtime ushers in the Bucks 5K Series of 7 races of equal distances over 7 different courses. The series helps you work off those winter lbs and gets you ready for that tri-suit you'll be wearing in June. Points are accumulated by age group and place in each of the 7 races. Since the races share sponsors, timers and technical support, you are guaranteed a consistent race experience on 7 diverse courses throughout the area. Best of all, results are tallied after each race so you can check your standings, as well as your competition’s, on their runner-friendly website. It's also a great way to gauge your fitness improvements during those crucial early spring training months. The rest of the family can explore race destination towns like New Hope and Doylestown.

If your wife, girlfriend, mother, sister or co-worker has been bitten by the running bug, she can train with a like-minded group of women at Doylestown's Central Park and be ready to run the Doylestown Township’s Oktoberfest 5K held in the park the first Saturday in October. The group meets on Tuesday evenings for 13 weeks, starting in July. Drop her at the park and ramble on over to the track for a speed workout held the same night about 1.5 miles away at the high school. Now that's multi-tasking, multi-sports!

To celebrate the 4th of July with a real kick, the Revolutionary Run 10K always attracts a large field of runners with locals and visitors alike. The weather and competition are always hot for the race at Washington's Crossing State Park along the Delaware.

The falling leaves make for a beautiful backdrop as the Friends of the Dove Run 10k is held at Peace Valley Park, New Britain Township. Held almost always on a dewy, yet crisp early fall morning, the race takes runners on a lake loop finishing with a half-mile straightaway finish over the dam portion of the lake. Also that month, the Patriot Games test racers' paddling skills in lieu of a swim, as teams of 2 paddle, ride and run around Lake Galena, entirely in the park.

Just when a rest day is needed, the Univest Pro-Cycling event brings world class cycling to Bucks County, including a criterium in the center of Doylestown on the second day of competition.

For runners training for a marathon, many locals take their long runs along the Delaware River where 20-plus miles of a loosely graveled towpath helps you train mercifully for that 26-mile payday.

If you can't back off for the holidays, there's still plenty to do in December. The Winter Race series begins on weekends. In addition, two holiday 8-mile runs embark from a trendy coffee shop in Doylestown on Christmas Eve morning and New Year’s Eve afternoon. Each year a growing number of holiday revelers meet to enjoy each others' company, share tall race tales and make plans for the next year.

So the next time you toe the line at that big Philly race you may be shoulder to shoulder with a finely-tuned Bucks County resident. With its tumbling bike-hike paths, beguiling park system and vast athlete network, the county is beginning to look a little like the well-known training "hotbeds and breakfasts" around the nation.