nancy marsillo's Staging Area

Had never been to Wine Country and thought this would be a great way to see some of it. The scenery did not disappoint. Many other facets of this race did though. For starters, at $180, I would have thought they would provide runners with a lousy plastic bag to put your bib and t-shirt in when you collect them at the Expo, like pretty much all other races do. Next, had to ask a few questions of staff at the Expo, they looked at me like a deer in the headlights. Lame and unprofessional.
A great deal of the course featured roads that were unwalkable, let alone fit for running on. They were patched and pocked everywhere and just an accident waiting to happen. How does a race organization justify mapping out a race course on such hazardous roads? It was absolutely scary . I live in the Northeast and not even after our harshest winters have I seen roads this bad.
Then, after the race, for the privilege of waiting in line for an hour, you get a lousy wineglass. Just what runners want to do after running 13+ miles, is stand in lines. The organizational nightmare of how this was done is beyond words. Surely there are more efficient ways to get the glasses to the runners, even if at the Expo on Saturday. Finally after almost an hour of waiting, a volunteer came out into the lines with wristbands, asking runners if they were 21. Why wasn’t this done from the get-go? And what if, like me, you had no intention of drinking there? Why no separate location for non-drinkers that day to get our glass? There should have been many more volunteers involved with this process. Ridiculous and a total fail. For $180, we should have been served on a silver platter!!
And yes, we all have different tastes when it comes to the t-shirt, but I thought it was pretty lame.
I am sure this race will continue to sell out each year but please think twice before plunking down this kind of money for such a sub-par event. If most of the proceeds go to charity, that is one thing, but I couldn’t even tell you if it does or not. Didn’t see any evidence that it does.