Katarzyna West's Staging Area

Beautiful, well organized race. You run through the rolling hills and wineries on each side of the road crowned by the view of mountains. Great aid stations and bathrooms along the route. Well designed medal with adorable wine charm. Great time of the year to run in this area, starts cold but midway through it got sunny and quite warm. I was worried what to wear and ended up with leggings and T-shirt combo plus a sweatshirt that I ditched after 4 miles. In retrospect I would have been better off with tank top and shorts and maybe a blanket at the start to keep warm. Course is relatively easy, mostly flat with some gentle rolling hills, nothing major and that comes from a person that does not run in hilly area on the regular. Scenery was simply stunning, can’t stress it enough how beautiful it was. What I wasn’t crazy about was the finish, you run through the town in the last mile or so into the high school parking lot. I actually got slightly confused whether I finished or not as you make a turn and then another turn in the last few meters. I love to sprint that last few yards and I just couldn’t picture the finish line clearly which is always a massive motivator for me. The other thing is that you don’t get that many spectators so if you rely on crowds energy that is not the race. It wasn’t an issue for me as I like more quiet, wide course that’s not overcrowded with runners. Me and my friend splurged for the package podium and in retrospect that wasn’t really necessary, you get cool extra swag but not really much support. We weren’t informed what time the bus takes off to take us back to the hotel and we nearly missed it. Also we didn’t plan for proper breakfast since it was supposed to be included in the package and we ended up with only pastry and coffee pre race. That is not something you should give out to any runner in any circumstances. Banana, toast, peanut butter would have been so much better. My friend had a muffin and I chose a scone which was a total mistake as I got GI issues into one hour after eating it. I definitely learned my lesson and will stick only to products I know from now on. I still finished under 4 hrs even with necessary bathroom stops along the way, so at least my ego wasn’t too damaged 😉
Strongly recommend staying at Calistoga Motor Lodge as the start of the race is in their backyard. Can’t beat that convenience.
All in all, a wonderful race and am planning to do it again.