Kat Zwick's Staging Area

This is one of the most beautiful coastal runs you can do; even more beautiful than the Santa Cruz Half-Marathon. It also boasts perfect running temps in early November in Monterey – between 50 and 60 for the whole race. I loved the Expo and the organization of the event. Really primo! However, the shirts that came with registration ran extremely small. I’m usually a Women’s Medium or Men’s Small active wear (I’m a woman but I like the fit of Men’s Small active wear better), but this time I could barely get a Men’s Small (which I’d ordered w/ my registration) over my head. I was not allowed to replace the ill-fitting shirt at the Expo on Saturday until after 4pm, at which point I couldn’t get back to the Expo due to previously purchased movie tix (& no notice that I was aware of in emails that this would be the case). I ended up with a snug Women’s Large that I had to wait until after the race to get in the Finisher’s Village – and you could only trade in if you didn’t wear the shirt in the race. They’d completely run out of Women’s XL (which in this case would have been a better fit on me) – probably because other Women were running into the same issue I was! I did not like the fit of the race shirts. They look great on very thin people, many of whom I saw wearing this shirt successfully in the race, but the shirts fit awkwardly and snugly on a curvy person such as myself. I don’t normally experience difficulty wearing race swag, so this was a bummer. It’s a beautifully designed shirt, but not made for diverse bodies – not even marginally diverse bodies!