Wellington twist to mark 5K Polo Dash and Bash

Wellington Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Michela Green was looking for a way to mak e the chamber’s third annual 5K run more unique to Wellington. The event’s first two years featured a color run in which participants were blasted with powders in various shades as they completed the course. That was fun, but Green wondered: “What’s something that Wellington has that a lot of places don’t have?”

The solution came from the Grand Champions Polo Club, the site of this year’s 5K Polo Dash and Bash on Sunday.

“Grand Champions was the perfect choice because of the way it’s laid out,” Green said. Two laps around the polo fields is a full 5K, she said.

Not to mention the views. “We think aesthetically, it’s going to look beautiful,” Green said.

The trail run — remember, there’s no pavement on a polo field — will be timed through Accuchip. Green said the chamber expects about 400 runners to sign up, with the first 300 receiving a swag bag and T-shirt.

NewSound Church is the patron sponsor for this year’s run. Participants will walk a red carpet before the 5K and can pose in front of a church-sponsored “step and repeat” — a banner emblazoned with the church’s logo.

There also will be a prerun warmup and live music, Green said.

In the spirit of a Sunday at the polo grounds, adults can enjoy post-race mimosas while children sip “mocktails,” which Green described as “fancy little drinks that are nonalcoholic.”

Children also have access to the Palms West Hospital-sponsored Ponies Only Patio, an area with activities, including a 155foot obstacle course, to keep kids busy while their parents participate in the 5K.

Vendors will be on-site selling healthy goods, and food trucks will sell “healthy and not-so-healthy options,” Green said, with a laugh.

If the chamber runs out of parking spaces at the polo grounds, Molly’s Trolleys will shuttle runners between overflow parking at Community Park on South Shore Boulevard and Grand Champions.

The chamber has reached out to local gyms to take part in a Battle of the Gyms at the 5K, and the gym team with the best time wins a trophy and “bragging rights,” Green said.

Green said she looks forward to introducing the chamber and what it has to offer to a new set of residents.

“Yes, we’re a business organization,” she said. “But we also do things for people that we don’t see throughout the year.”