Sarah Hurley's Staging Area

To start, while the race begins and ends at Garmin HQ, Garmin itself is minimally involved to my knowledge. The race is hosted and organized by the city of Olathe, KS. I think it’s important to point this out, since people might see Garmin in the race name and think it’s a big-budget endeavor.

Pros:
* Packet pickup at the expo was quick and painless
* Pacer for the 4:30 did a great job announcing plans ahead of time for aid stations and different segments of the race
* Crowd support was surprisingly excellent, both from the community and the volunteers. The aid stations were well-staffed with people clearly communicating water/Gatorade and handing out plenty of each.
* Plenty of aid stations, roughly every 2-3 miles, at least 4 stations with fuel. I believe every station had water AND Gatorade.
* The medal is big and shiny and beautiful!

Cons:
* The route was not very exciting. About 1/3 of it was on a closed-off lane in the street, another 1/3 on a paved bike/walking path through the woods, and 1/3 on sidewalks.
* Post-run fuel as far as I saw was banana halves, bagel chunks, and chocolate milk. Since they were already sliced and tossed in a box for self-serve, the bananas and bagels were not very appealing.
* The hills on the back half are no joke. I trained on those hills, but hitting them on legs after >20 miles was a completely different beast from training at <20.
* Lack of porta-potties on the bike path, which accounted for the middle 1/3 of the race. Not a big deal if you don’t mind ducking behind a tree, but worth mentioning.
* The expo itself was tiny, and the race shirt was generic for all distances. I bought a nice customized shirt from a vendor after the race that had all of the Marathon and Half Marathon participants listed on the back.

Bottom line, this was a low-cost, low-frills race with big crowd energy right in my backyard. I am glad I ran it once, but I do not expect to repeat it.