Joy Cannon's Staging Area

Leading up to the race, I felt like I would have liked a little more communication from the race directors. Maybe a more detailed email about where to find the start line. Mostly the packet pickup was inconvenient, and struck me as a money grab. If you don’t want to brave the city on the weekend, you have to pay $35 to have the privilege of picking up your packet race morning. For those of us who work in the city but live elsewhere, it stinks – a Friday evening pickup is a much nicer option.
The 7am start is painful, but otherwise the race itself was fine – my running buddy and I got dropped off near the starting line and found our way there despite the lack of specifics. The gear check was nice and easy enough an hour before the race; there was no porta-potty line when we got there. However, by 6:30am the line for both the porta-pots and gear check were quite long, and when the gun went off at 7am there were still a lot of people in line.
The course was pretty nice, although the climb up to the bridge is definitely challenging. I had not really trained, so this was a pretty painful race. We were disappointed that the fog was heavy and we didn’t get the awesome pics we hoped for on the bridge, but no race director can control the weather.
We took our time, between being under-trained and the hills, and finished in just a little under 3 hours. By the time we crossed the finish line, the food and beverages were pretty decimated. There were several water dispensers, but all but one or two were completely empty. We got some water and a granola bar, but not much else. Some fruit even would have been nice. All in all it was a solid race, and I would consider doing it again (if I trained).