Audrey Kung's Staging Area

This is one of the flattest Brazen races, with only a few small hills.

The course is one of my favorite courses, as you get a little bit of everything – running over wooden bridges, a few small hills, and a lovely view of the entire bay. Keep in mind though, you can’t park on site, so you have to take a shuttle. Not a big deal, but worth mentioning.

The one con to this race is that there never seems to be enough porto potties. there was the same issue last year, and it seems like they didn’t learn. Line was over 15 minutes long, and I saw lots of people have late starts because of it.

Swag wise, you get all the usual Brazen swag which is great – high quality, big medal, and the great food at the end (this was my friend’s first Brazen race and he commented that the food was beyond amazing)

Signed up for this since it was literally a mile from my house, and it was for a good cause, so I thought why not? Since it was a fun run, I was a little worried about the race production, but it surprised me in a good way. Everything from pre race communications to race day bib pick up to the awards after the race was super smooth. I even emailed the race director at 8pm the night before to ask about drop bags and he responded within 30 minutes!

There were the bathrooms at the park, which weren’t very crowded at all. I think I waited in line 5 minutes tops. The race started about 5 minutes late, but not a big deal for me. There was one aid station half way through – unfortunately (why I only gave production 4/5 stars) though, it wasn’t set up in time when I passed by it at the beginning of the race. Since it was only a 5k, didn’t mind too much.

The course is on the scenic Bay Trail, and you’re on the water for the majority of the race. And it’s flat flat flat, perfect for a PR. What’s also nice about the course is that there’s a dirt trail along side the paved trail, so you can run on whichever surface you want.

And the best part? The random goodie bag of samples you get at the end, plus the raffles (which are $50 gift certificates from their random sponsors like local restaurants and running stores)

Note though, that they don’t do medals, nor are there pictures. Not a big deal for me, but wanted to mention that in case it matters.

This race is perfect if you are looking for a PR – super flat and not a lot of turns so you have to worry about running the tangents or adding extra mileage to the distance.

It’s good for a first timer, or someone who wants to experience the RnR event series, but there were a few annoying items (for me) that comes with all big races for me:
– No race day packet pick up, nor did they give the option to mail it to you. They force to you go to the expo and visit the vendors, and the lines just to get in and get your stuff are LONG, so that will take an extra 1-2 hours the day before, not even including your commute time
– If you’re a back of the pack runner, it will take you 45 minutes of standing in the corral just to get to the start line. I was in the first corral, and when we were running past the race start (near the end), I saw about 1/3 the people hadn’t even started yet.
– This year’s race advertised free parking, but then due to an issue with the space, they ended up charging people for it at a different location. This was false advertising and completely ILLEGAL

Although I took my first DNF on this course, it is definitely a great race and Coastal Trail Runs put on a great production of it. I love small intimate trail runs like this. The shuttle to the start was seamless and actually left on time! The volunteers at the aid stations were nothing short of amazing – helped you fill up your water packs and whatever else you needed. The course is extremely beautiful. Just unfortunately for me, the weather was in the high 80s and by mile 16 I was done, as were a lot of other people. CTR actually sent a bus to pick up the DNFs, and at the finish line the volunteers again were very helpful in making sure we got what we needed.

I originally chose this race for my first 50k because it had the lowest elevation gain compared to other 50ks in the Bay Area (think I registered around 2900 feet of gain on my watch). A good chunk (like 1/3) of the race is on pavement, and the terrain is not too technical, so I’d recommend road shoes over trail ones.

The reason I took off a star is because the course is a little boring. You get nice scenery around Lake Chabot, but for the 50k, you do 2 full laps around the lake, and then a 5 mile out and back along the same course… which is both mentally boring and toys with your limits.

As with other CTR races, you get their great food at the end, hot chili, and BBQ’ed hot dogs and burgers.

I feel bad leaving a bad review for this race, since it’s a local race supporting a good cause. However, I was looking for a 5k race as a gauge for how my current training was going, and this race was not good for it at all. They really need to label it as a “fun run” so there is no confusion, as:
– There is no start timing mat, and I started almost 10 minutes late, which added that amount of time to my what should have been a PR
– No bag check and no aidstations – normally fine, but they should make this clear
– No directions about the distances between parking, packet pick up, and start line, which were all really far from another, hence making me really late for the first bullet point

Now to elaborate more on my race day experience:
There were absolutely no pre race instructions, and the website had almost no information (hence I had no idea about the lack of aid stations or bag check). We didn’t even get instructions on where to park, where the bib pick up was, or where the start line was – all it said was the highschool. So the morning of, I got directions to the highschool from Google, and when I got close, I followed the other cars into the parking lot. I arrived about 45 minutes before the race start, which is normally way more than enough time.

Then, there were absolutely no signs about where bib pick up was, but I saw some people walking back to their cars with their stuff, so I was able to ask. I started walking there… after about 10 minutes, I picked it up to a jog cause it was much farther than I thought and realized I was going to be late for the start. I had my Garmin running at this time, and it was almost a mile from the parking lot to the bib pick up! At least the bib pick up was quick.. but then I realized there was no bag check at all. At this point, there was only about 20 minutes before the start, and my car was a mile away. I ran back to my car to drop it off and DROVE to a residential street near the bib pick up area and parked my car there.

Now, imagine my surprise when I get back to the bib pick up area, and I don’t see a start area. (Partially my fault for not paying closer attention before, but they really should tell us these things) Had to ask around again to figure out where it was, and it happened to be another half mile away! By this time, the race had already started, so I figured I would just walk it over since I’d already been running around like a crazy person between the parking and bib pick up, just assuming that they would have a chip time in addition to the gun time.

Wrong assumption. The start line was just a chalk drawn on the ground. Ugh. And at the end.. I don’t think there was a timing mat at the finish either, as we had to give them a ticket off our bib, where they wrote something down.

As for the other items, they give you a shirt, a grocery bag, but no medal. The food at the end was the standard race food, bananas and coffee cake.

All in all, this is a nice race if you want to support a local school, but they really really need to market it as a fun run.

This is one of the “easier” Brazen races, as it’s fairly flat, but it is not a good course for a PR since the majority of the terrain is pretty rocky. I used this as a recovery run, so the rocky terrain actually helped slow me down a bit. The volunteer support for this race was probably one of the best from all the other Brazen races I’ve been to. They did a little turkey run at the beginning, so I think a lot of the kids stayed and helped out – it was really cute! This was one of the more crowded races, but the parking lot was huge so not a lot of congestion getting there race morning.