Danielle Singson's Staging Area

I have to first say this race is NOT pancake flat… There are a few rollers on course that were a bit of an annoyance.

The logistics of this race were not terrible. Lots of buses to the start. My friend and I booked an Airbnb that was a block from the finish line so it was a quick walk to the shuttle and there were plenty of buses. I highly recommend this option over the host hotel. My only complaint there is that it was cold first thing in the morning and we had to wait more than an hour before the race and a previous review said you could wait on the bus, not true. Dress warm and check a bag with those clothes before you start.

The course is not very scenic. Mostly on Long straightaways of main roads and residential areas. The temperature outside and weather was not terrible just most of the route you’re running with the sun in the direction of your face. There was zero wind the day I ran and I felt like a little breeze may have helped because it felt much hotter than it was.

There was okay crowd support… spectators cheering was wonderful, however there were some long stretches where it just got lonely. Very well marked course and good police support at intersections. You could tell a lot of planning went into this race which was much appreciated.

Another suggestion for the race organizers: Since this race is boasted as great for a BQ why was there no pacer from 3:30 to 3:45? I needed to run a 3:40 and was basically by myself most of the course… I saw there were pacers for a lot of the over 4 hour times, but a lot of the BQ times had no pacer and maybe it would have been better to have a group instead of running the majority of the course alone.

I ran a 6 minute marathon PR… Missed a BQ by a little over 3 minutes… But overall this was a well planned out race with good aide stations and course support.