Munchathon

If I were to run any race, this would have been it. Food plus running. Two of my favorite things. Unfortunately, I didn't run but I did enjoy hanging out with my friend Albert, some of the Yelp crew, and meeting up with some familiar faces.Irvine Park was a great venue. It was spacious and there were plenty of places to sit and ample shade. The White Rabbit truck provided some music and we got to sample from several trucks - Fresh Fries, The Lime Truck, Great Balls, Lobsta Truck, and Tapa Boy. Also got to run into my favorite, Chunk n Chip and take a ride in their truck. Woohoo!! The highlight of the day was seeing Adam Richman. I LOVE his show. We stayed to watch it being filmed and managed to get a photo at the end. That was beyond amazing. I loved every moment of that. Experiencing how the show is filmed, talking to the competitor, and watching it being filmed was just so cool. Can't wait for it to air in 4 weeks. I feel like a mini-celebrity. Great job Munchathon crew! You rock!

Woohooo! It was food truckin' all the way this weekend in Santiago Canyon!Thanks to the awesome Hazel Q, I snagged myself some complimentary tix to the food truck festival at the Munchathon event this past Saturday!Although it took awhile to find this elusive event, as soon as I did, it was like finding a gourmet food oasis in the middle of the dessert! There were loads of gourmet trucks serving up tasty street fare to hungry athletes and spectators alike! With that said, I wasted no time in diving into the food frenzy and sampling some new tasty food truck fare for myself!I hit trucks like the Cheeseball Wagon, Short Stop BBQ, Lime Truck, Vchos Papusa Truck, Kona Ice and Tornado Potato to name a few! Everything I tried was fantastic and I must say I left totally full and satisfied!To my surprise, Adam from Man Vs. Food was spotted filming on the grounds and folks started snapping tons of photos! Unfortunately the crew trumped most of us from nabbing a snapshot of the food star. As you can see, I said some of us... I did in fact manage to get a photo! Of his back, of course! Buzzkill!In any case, it was good fun and although I missed my Yelp buddies, I was able to hit up some really awesome food trucks that I've never tried before! Here's to tasty new discoveries and awesomely good times!Happy Eats!

I did not participate in the 5K part of the Munchathon, only the Post Munchathon Food Truck portion of this event. I did see a lot of my Yelp friends at this event that did participate in the 5K and they were very happy that they participated in this one of a kind 5K and eat type marathon. I heard they had fries and oysters on the 5K....LOL....sounds like a lot of FUN and my plan is to consider participating next year!As for the Post-Munchathon part of this event, I was able to try munchables foods from several trucks like the TapaBoyLA, LobstaTruck, White Rabbit, Great Balls on Tires, and the Fresh Fries trucks.As for freebies, I got tastes from Kern's Natural drinks and 8th Continent Soy Milk.This was already a Yelp Five Star event, but what made it better was that the White Rabbit food truck was able to get Travel Channel's "Man Vs. Food Nation" host, Adam Richman, to Irvine Lake to finish the filming of their Los Angeles episode. I was able to follow the production and filming of the episode. The episode is suppose to air in 3-4 weeks.Me and my fellow Yelper, Suki were even privileged to get a photo with the MVFN man himself. Needless to say....the photo is now my NEW Yelp & Facebook profile pic....YAY for a FUN way to spend a Saturday afternoon!A special TY to Hazel Q for giving me tickets to this FUN event! =)

A lot of people thought this wouldn't work out. Running and scaling obstacles, while occasionally stopping to eat.. But you know what? They made it work!On top of that, Hazel Q. and Yelp made this rad event even better!We formed a team of Yelp superheros; donning some sweet Yelp gear (including Yelp capes!), and chased two villainous food items throughout the rugged 5k course.Mike Q. and Drew M. (aka donut and hotdog, respectively) pretty much stole the show at this event as the food villains that we superheros were running after. A few highlights included the lack of shortage of hotdog buns (er.. I mean "puns") lobbed about throughout the day, and "Donut" successfully hiding from and surprising runners in the tire run.If you think a regular run is difficult, try keeping down items like soy milk, chips, ice cream, cupcakes, and yes, even oysters while running 3 miles. Let's just say I'm glad I decided not to drink the night before (the Yelpers who had; you know who you are.. My hat's off to you!).After the run, we lounged in the park area and sampled from a large variety of food trucks.All in all, a really beautiful day with some super fun peeps!

The Good: A fun 5k that had some interesting things to eat and drink along the way. Food trucks, a ton of them, with little to no lines. Runners having fun dressing up and enjoying a beautiful day in Irvine. The Bad: I was expecting more food along the course route. I think it was mostly liquids like water, tea, fruit juice or soy milk. I thought it would have food trucks with small samples along the way. With less food stops my friends actually jogged the course and with me out of shape paid the price. Why do they charge for parking? Oh yeah, more free money. There is a huge lot outside the course which didn't even get close to getting filled but $5 for general and $10 for preferred.The Ben: Full disclosure, I won tickets on Yelp. Thanks HQ and Yelp for that. It was fun just because I was with friends and this was a first time event. I loved the no lines for food trucks but some of my favorites didn't hold up, yeah you Ludo Truck. Nice try for a first attempt. Adam Richman showed up for a Man vs Food Nation filming, to bad I was long gone and nursing my aching legs :(

I was actually quite impressed with the overall layout and design of this event! The ground was quite rugged, with large rocks abounding, but thankfully no one who entered today was there to actually race through the course *COUGH COUGH*Sometimes it felt like it was a pretty long distance between food or drink carts, and other times it felt like a bottleneck, but there were obstacles to hop over, walls to climb, tunnels to crawl through, inflatable obstacles courses to bounce on, and various food vendors to give us the energy needed to continue. The weather turned out to be perfect, and our Yelp Team of caped crusaders and costumed culinary delights make short work of every obstacle thrown at us. The turnout was a bit low, but there were a lot of food trucks represented, a great DJ, lots of shade, plenty of bathrooms, and friendly staff. Everything to my eye went without a hitch, and our team had a blast! The fact is, if you're not in a costume for these events, you're standing out. Thanks Hazel Q for putting together some great costumes, and for all the Yelpers who came out EARLY and took over the show!

I may or may not have had too much to drink prior to agreeing to run this 5K. My mantra has always been, "Why run, if nothing's chasing you?" and yet there I was at 8:30 wondering if anyone would really notice if I left.But, as it turns out, I had a blast at this event. Sure, it was out in the boonies (tip: make sure you know EXACTLY where you are going before heading out to Silverado, because if you miss your off-ramp, the Toll Road gods are brutal) and yes, you do have to pay for parking. But once in, the event was awesome. The 5K had obstacles along the way (tunnels, walls, and even a bouncehouse-type inflatable!) as well as food trucks giving out samples for the runners. As we approached the Slapfish truck, I heard one runner behind me say, "Oh great. Now I can go shoot a couple oysters, throw up, and keep running." Sometimes it was easier to just pass the food. :)After running (or in my case, walking & bitching), we were rewarded with a bevy of food trucks at our disposal. I don't think I have seen so many in one place! I wasn't in the mood to undo all of my "hard work" on the 5K by putting down some Korean/taco/sliders, so I stuck to the Rolling Sushi Van and got my beloved California rolls. I hope the attendance was enough to warrant another event like this. It was great seeing a lot of people (not just the Yelpers!) in costume, and I can start to see why people do this voluntarily!

I wasn't sure what to expect with this event, but I was really impressed and had more fun than I expected! I've done my share of running events (a handful of 5k's and 10k's and two Half Marathons under my belt so far over the past year), so this event was more of a casual and fun workout compared to the hardcore, timed and full out run like I normally do for races. The course itself was very rocky and uneven, making me feel like I was going to fall a few times. There was a few food trucks and obstacles along the way, but not as many as I anticipated. Sometimes the trucks and obstacles were very far apart (I was expecting them to be every quarter of a mile or so, but they weren't), but overall I had a good time sampling food and climbing over walls, going through tunnels, climbing through an inflatable bouncy type house and hopping over fences. Our Yelp Gang dressed up as Superheros; complete with capes, a mask, Yelp shirts, wrist bands and headbands. The superheros where chasing after the villains, Hot dog and Donut. Awesome! Seems like Yelp for sure stole the show at this event, as everyone was taking our picture and asking what we were about. After the fun run, we hung out in the park and relaxed. Eating food from the food trucks, socializing, listening to the great DJ and just having fun. The weather was perfect for this event, not too hot and not too cold. My only disappointment was that it seemed like the turnout for this event was really low. So low, that when I left, I mentioned to a person that was working there "can't wait for next year!" and he responded in a very unhappy voice "yea, we'll see". Don't know if that means they aren't planning on having another Munchathon due to the low turn out or what. But, I hope they do this event again since I would consider participating again! All in all, fun morning with cool people! Cheers!

Please ignore every four-star or five-star review on this page. High reviews were either posted by Munchathon staff or volunteers, or Yelp volunteers/ free ticket recipients (Yelp partnered with the organizers to promote this event). Free ticket = extremely easy to please!!From an UNBIASED race attendee who paid full price, here's my opinion:My friends and I felt that the event was, not to mince words, a major disappointment and rip-off. We expected a gourmet food event, where we would encounter creative "food-themed obstacles" (as described in publicity materials), and delicious food-truck-supplied small portions that we would enjoy as we walked/ ran the course.Instead, we found "Munchathon" to not even be its own event, borrowing everything, from the banners to the course to the obstacles, from the Irvine mud run that would be held the next day. Munchathon didn't even have large enough signs to make it easy for us to find the event. We thought we were at the wrong fun run. But unlike the Irvine mud run, which at least would offer copious amounts of MUD, the Munchathon offered virtually nothing. Instead of small portions of delicious food truck food along the way, and an interesting course with creative food-themed obstacles, we found a desert-like pathway with practically nothing interesting to look at or to do along the way.And, oh, dear..... the "food." Apparently, the organizers thought they could pull one over on us participants by inviting companies that wanted to promote their products to show up and offer free samples, rather than to have ACTUAL FOOD TRUCKS give the participants small plates of gourmet food, which is what the event's advertisements implied. Only a couple of actual food trucks participated in the event itself, and they gave us (1) hummus and fries (tasty, but sort of random), and (2) a raw oyster. Many of the folks in my group were kosher, and could not even eat the oyster. In a word..... HUH???? Otherwise, we got a very strange and decidedly ungourmet mixture of Kern's nectar, soymilk in a carton, iced tea, packaged nutrition bars, and other random crap that no one was particularly interested in eating or drinking. This is stuff that you could get for FREE, as samples, at most public events. Not to mention the fact that the "obstacles" were nothing but random wooden barriers that looked like horse gates. (Except for the last one, which was sort of fun). What about a wooden horse gate, exactly, is "food themed"??!?And yet, we were charged FIFTY BUCKS for the privilege of attending this event. As none of this went to charity, this absurdly high price simply cannot be justified. Simply and plainly, I want my money back. I was so embarrassed to have invited my friends to this event, that I had to apologize to them profusely. The whole event would have been redeemed if the organizers had given the participants a credit towards buying food from a food truck at the end of the race. But no. The food truck grub was just as pricey as it normally would be. Oh.... and the best part was that the organizers (1) charged people extra to pick their race packets up on the day of the race, when this clearly cost them nothing extra at all; and (2) charged us even MORE to park, after we'd already shelled out $50 (they didn't warn us about this in advance).On top of all this, the Munchathon website had NO useful information on it with respect to race-day logistics, and the Munch staff was completely unresponsive to questions asked repeatedly, beforehand, by me and my other friends who attended. When we finally realized that the only way to get responses would be to post on Facebook, we asked what times the waves would begin, and were told that it would be "first come first served." Imagine, then, my friends' disappointment when we showed up at 8:30 am, to learn that the wave times HAD been set in advance, and ours was over an hour away (9:50). We came all the way from LA, and had to get up at 6:30 am to get there, only to realize that this early bird arrival was totally unnecessary. In a word, this event was absolutely appalling. I am so angry I could spit.

A food truck events with a variety of food trucks and no lines, ever? How can you not be a fan of that? You probably can, when you weren't expecting to drive this far, getting lost, and being told that you have to pay for parking on top of your admission ticket even though there was nothing on the event website that warned you about it. Probably worse for people who actually paid the fifty something bucks to participate in the obstacle course.Highlights of the event:- Yelp booth + Yelp stuff :)- Free stuff, lots of it. And since there weren't that many people, they didn't seem to run out.- Various food trucksThe DJ kept saying that something special was gonna happen at the White Rabbit food truck. First we heard "an hour" then an hour later nothing was happening so we waited and waited some more and still nothing so we just left. Turns out, it was Adam from Man vs Food.I hope it was worth it for the food trucks to drive out here, there really didn't seem to be enough people to form the usual lines. On the plus side, it was easy to get our nom on!