Chuck Krueger's Staging Area

This race was beautiful, because it’s in hawaii. That was the only positive that I would give the race. The expo was very small and had very little parking. The race start was a few miles from my hotel so I decided to take the shuttle. There was a mile long line of people that had the same idea as me. The race starts at 5 so at 430 having not even made it to the halfway point of the line (got there at 345) I got an uber. Once I got there the staging area was divided parallel to the course with several sets of barricades and the outhouses on the opposite side of me. I decided to wait till I saw one on the course. Well, the first set of toilets were all locked, so I wasn’t able to drop one till between mile 5 and 6. The views were great tho, and I hit sunrise right at the diamond head overlook so that was awesome. Water was staged very evenly and plentifully along with Gatorade. There was 1 gel station along the course. Finally, the finish corral was very disorganized and sprawling with various club tents. You had to leave the finishers area to get your shirt (a very rough fabric shirt that I will not be wearing) and a donut and water. Overall, the race isn’t organized, and you don’t really get much for doing it, but you are in Hawaii, so that makes up for it!

The scenery of the black hills was amazing during the race. You also got to get up close and personal with crazy horse. The start of the race had mixed elevation and a loop that brought through the starting line 3 times. This was nice for water and shedding clothes. After leaving this area the race was downhill until mile 10ish. This was an extremely relaxing and peaceful portion of the race. It was easy to take the sights in. Then you have to turn around and run back up the trail you just came down. Along the way there were plenty of water stops, Gatorade, and bananas. The only people to cheer you on though were the people waiting for their relay partners and the volunteers working the water stations and road crossings. After mile 16ish, the map showed a net down hill. I was very excited for this, but after a few miles it seemed like all I was doing was going uphill again. If you are up for a challenge this is a great race. It is defiantly not a PR race, but the black hills are great.

It takes a long time to start the race because of the shear number of people competing. The race was great and the medals and end party were a lot of fun. I would recommend this race.