Linda Spooner's Staging Area

My husband and I traveled from the East Coast to participate in this race. We were enticed by the promise of a USATF-certified course, which is important to both of us. I realize now that I should have read reviews about the race in advance, because the negative ones from the past few years are spot on.
We flew into Vegas and then drove the 2.5 hours to Lake Havasu City so that we wouldn’t need to spend the exorbitant ($40!) fee for bib delivery or race morning pick up. The “Expo” was nothing other than a couple of tents blowing in the wind. We picked up our shirts, which were a terrible yellow color, cotton, and ill fitting. Normally, we would drive the course to make sure we knew where turns and hills were located, but because a lot of this race is on pedestrian pathways and bike paths, we were unable to do so.
On race morning, I was surprised at how dark it was at the race starting time of 6:30am. On the main road portions, cones were placed to keep runners safe from cars. The police also did a nice job of controlling traffic. BUT, that is where the help ended.
Around the 5k mark, we entered a neighborhood that had absolutely no arrows or volunteers. A few men and a woman went right past a turn. I was thankful for a man in an orange tank top who yelled to them (and me next to him) that we needed to turn. Unfortunately, my husband was further back and did not know of the turn, and this added about 0.3-0.4 miles to the race.
Almost midway through the race, we ran along the lake on pedestrian paths. They were narrow, and we weaved our way through. I kept following the orange tank top guy, since he seemed to know where he was going. By the time we hit mile 8, we discovered we had added almost a mile to the race. There were ZERO directionals in that entire pedestrian path portion, and there was no turnaround arrow to indicate where to head back. I felt a sense of dread come over me at that point.
Mile markers after that were sparse. The mile 10 marker was off to the side of the road where it couldn’t be seen easily, and at that point, my watch beeped 11 miles. As we continued to wind through the bike path, I was getting concerned that we were lost, since I saw no volunteers (other than the water stop guy at “mile 10”) or arrows.
I was extremely angry to run a full mile over 13.1. My husband ran 14.4. At the end, I learned that this is par for the course for this race. I even spoke to a police officer after the race who told me that the police have asked them to mark the course better, since they are upset that the runners always ask them where to go.
The awards ceremony was held after the 5k…at 11:30 am, when the half marathon started at 8:30am. It was poorly done, the medals just said the race company’s name, and the glasses they had for first in AG weren’t handed out until they got to the 40 year old age category.
We were stunned that a race like this could be so poorly organized. It angers me that so many folks traveled to this race, all to have it fall apart in the middle. I will be posting on my social media/running group sites to avoid this race at all costs.