Erin Babin's Staging Area

Overall, this was an okay race. It has so much potential to be great.
Positives:
1. The course was well marked. I never felt confused as to which way I was supposed to go even at both splits at half and full runners.
2. Most volunteers were encouraging, friendly, and supportive. I’ve never seen more law enforcement officers that were as encouraging.
3. The scenery was nice – the park, the old houses, and Churchill Downs.

Improvements:
1. It would have been nice to receive an email the week of the race with instructions. Most races do this with instructions for packet pickup, etc.
2. At the expo, I was given a mini marathon bib instead of a full marathon and the wrong shirt size was written on the back of the bib. Thankfully, I noticed when I was handed the wrong shirt. I had to get back in line for the bibs and then go back to get the correct shirt. When the volunteer who gave me the correct bib started to write the shirt size on the back, she wrote L for ladies then W fir womens. I had to correct her that I requested a small. I overhead two other women saying they were also given either the wrong bib and/or wrong shirt. If the names are in a database, and they must be printed last minute anyway, assign each runner their bib number at that time and use one of the tear off tags at the bottom for the shirt size. That will eliminate the wrong bib and/or the wrong shirt being handed out.
3. There were some aid stations with only Powerade. How do you not have water at all stations?
4. At some stations, Powerade was being put into water cups. I understand running out of Powerade cups and having to improvise, but volunteers should be more vocal of what they are holding. At one station, I said “water”, voicing to the volunteer what I wanted. As he put it in my hand, he said “Powerade”. Since Powerade doesn’t sit well with me, I threw away a whole cup which could have been avoided if he would have voiced it a little sooner.