James Hemond's Staging Area

I attended this race as it was the location of the 50 States Half Marathon Club annual meet-up. I run many races in many locations so I feel like my perception of this race is not just based on a first-time runner.
When we arrived at the Expo on Friday Afternoon we got our bibs without any issues, however when we went to get our shirts my wife was given unisex shirts. I checked the registration details and it did say they were Women’s Cut Shirts in addition to Unisex. They advised the had already run out of the Unisex size that would fit her. This set the tone for how the race weekend would go…
On Saturday we ran the 8k. They also ran the 5k at the same time. At these races they ran out of medals. For both the 5k and 8k races… The race reps said they had a lot of late registrants. In my mind these late registrants should be the ones to not get the medals, not the people that registered early but may be slower, but of course the race director wouldn’t want to offend the faster runners… For the record I did receive a medal, but I had several members of my running club who did not.
Ok, so we now have 2 days for this race and 2 issues.

So now its Sunday, Marathon and Half Marathon day. The race is point to point so we have to park about a mile from the finish line and take a bus to the start line. This is relatively smooth and without major problems, however it is rainy and windy, but I know that can’t be controlled by the race.
At the start line all of the runners are huddled under the walkway at the shopping plaza where the start is located. It is impossible to hear any announcements. In the runner information there are 2 different start times listed for the Half Marathon, so we are not sure when the race actually starts. After asking several runners we all agree the Half start time is 7:10 rather than 7:00. At 7:10 all the half runners swarm to the start line as we cannot really hear any announcements indicating when the corrals start. The first corral goes off at 7:10 and we’re off into the wind and rain. Most of the first 7 or so miles was on the main road with a couple of turns into neighborhoods. Just past mile 7 all that changes… The race turns into a trail run where runners have to run up and down a hilly hiking trail, that is now muddy and slippery from the rain. NOWHERE in their communication to runners said there was any trail element. I don’t run on trails and was very concerned for injury because of this unexpected element. After just over a half mile we come out onto a dirt road in the woods. Of course with the rain the road is filled with puddles and to me this felt like were in a scene from “Deliverance” as it was so remote and at certain points no other people could be seen… Again, this was never put in any of their race communications. Muddy roads were not on my to-do list for a race either. Ok, so I survived the 2+ miles of muddy road and we’re finally back on pavement…For a little while, then it was off onto a narrow sidewalk and a horrible gravel/stone trail around the perimeter of a school.
Finally, I made it to the finish line. I received a medal, a mylar blanket and a bag with a banana and a marathon finisher cap??? I found the food tent and then to the beer garden.
Shortly after I finished people started appearing in the beer garden saying the Half Marathon ran out of medals. So now 3 races in the weekend were lacking medals. Unfortunately my wife was one of the people that did not get a medal. And the solution to track these people was to write their names on a piece of paper towel?!?!? The Race later said that 2 boxes of medals were stolen, but that seems rather odd… And it took them 2 days to let people know of this.

So in summary, I would not recommend this race even if it was free entry due to :
1. Women’s shirts were unisex, even though at registration they listed Women’s sizes
2. The race ran out of Medals for 3! races!!!
3. A road race had an unadvertised trail element in the middle of it along with a dirt road.
4. Extremely poor communication overall.

The one positive I will say was they did have both race shirts and hats for all the races which is a rarity.

I also wanted to point out that the race touts this on its website:
“Participants will enjoy the gorgeous natural scenery along the course as it twists and turns across the islands of the Outer Banks.”
Well, I can say we saw mostly highways, strip malls and large houses for the first half of the race with maybe a half-mile view of any waterfront and then forest for 2+ miles. Not quite what I consider scenic or iconic of the Outer Banks.

First, let me say that I have run at least 15 races put on by this Race Director for the last 6 years so I have plenty of experience with them.
Over the last couple of years I have seen the quality of these races drop noticeably.
1. The races always start at least 10 minutes late. When its 80+ degrees on the race course, those 10 minutes before the sun comes up can be very beneficial.
2. The race could use another water stop. The course is run where there is very little shade and for slower runners it gets very hot. The race has as many water stops as advertised but could use at least one more.
3. Timing issues seem to be a theme on these races. I haven’t experienced it so much for the Half Marathon but the 5k and 10k have numerous timing issues where finishers who should get AG awards don’t even know if they actually qualified.
4. I have witnessed several times the RD yelling at race participants before the race. One time he was yelling at people at the port-a-potties to hurry up because they are too slow and antoehr he yelled at the runners to get in the starting corral, even though there was 20 minutes until the start of the race.

Even though I want to like these races like I have in the past, I cannot overlook all of the issues they seemto experience and I cannot encourage people to register for them at this time. I hope these issues get resolved and this can go back to being the best race series in Pinellas County, FL.

I ran this race this year. It was ok. Not one I’d travel to again but glad I finished it. My one complaint is that the course was supposed to be open for 4 hours and it closed earlier than that for the later finishers. The cops just drove off with runners in the road. Very unsafe and should fall back on the RD for poor planning.

As someone who has been running the Florida Road Races events for 5 years, I was highly disappointed with the way that the Clearwater Distance Classic was executed.
There was a new race director that took over FRR starting with this race. He has been an RD for many other races, but they were all in New England. The course itself was essentially the same as in past races, however, that is the only thing that is equal to past events.

-The Shirts were too small
-As a back of the pack runner, I found that all of the food and drinks were gone when I finished and nearly all of the post race area was torn down already.
-There was minimal water stops on the first half of the race even though it was a warm day.
-The 5 mile runners only had a single water stop
-Water Stops were out of Gatorade and some were very low on water.
-Medals were not available for the Half Marathon finishers and not enough medals were there for the 5 milers.
-The race course was being taken apart even before the cut off times, even though there were runners on the course.

All in all, I was quite disappointed because after running 15 FRR races this didn’t meet the standards that were already established. If these do not improve I would highly recommend to skip these races.

For the first running of this race, it was pretty smoothly run and shows good potential. I will consider running this again in the future. Well done.