Kathy Elliott's Staging Area

Totally disappointed in this race. Since this was an out-of-state race for us I researched this race thoroughly before signing up. The history of and promise of an abundance of bands and crowd support is why I signed up. Neither of these panned out. No crowd support except for the great volunteers at the water stations THANK YOU and some well spirited people in random neighborhoods that had their own variety of treats out (the donut was wonderful – as was the fireball shot). There were only 3 bands on the course and they were ill placed. I felt sorry for the band stuck out by the interstate – no visibility and you could hardly hear them. I’ve run 21 half-marathons and this is the first one where runners had to stop at intersections for traffic – that was a mess – and dangerous with a mixture of police and volunteers directing traffic. It’s also the first half-marathon I’ve run where the marathon, half-marathon and 5k (plus walker/strollers) all start at the same time. Due to long port-a-potty lines I was in the back and lost a good 5 minutes getting around all the “walkers”. The course itself was nothing exceptional but I did like the mixture and downtown and residential running. The access roads by the interstate were just boring though. I did not feel it was overly hilly – compared to Tennessee or North Alabama. Postrace food was a bag of pretzels, 1 energy bar and 1 banana – usually what you get a 5k race. No bands or awards ceremony. Not impressed with the medal – it’s one of the smaller ones I’ve gotten lately and pretty boring. When you registered the website said you were getting a race shirt & tote bag (marathon & half-marathon) and a music cd for the 5k runners. But there were no tote bags or cd’s. When asked we were told it was a funding issue. (But these items were still listed on the website as part of your registration fee up until race day.) We heard that this race was bought out by a company in Louisiana. Maybe that’s why it’s lost so much support – why would locals want to support an out-of- state company instead of keeping it local? We tried Jackson, MS but this was a one and done.