Georgia: It’s on your mind. It’s on ours too. We kick off Southern Discomfort in Georgia, the Peach State, where every soda is a Coke and where we’ve been Gone with the Wind and we’ve driven Miss Daisy. The only driving you’ll be doing, though, is to the start of this adventure.
So soak up our Southern hospitality with unlimited food and drink, everything from Gu and gummy bears to potato chips and cookies, along with Southern classics like pimento cheese sandwiches and banana pudding. On Memorial Day Monday, we’ll have hot dogs and root beer floats, so you don’t even need to barbeque! Take on any distance from 5K to ultramarathon and run away from those banjos you hear. Our ten hour time limit lets you go slow as molasses if you want to. And our unique multi-lap course means you’ll always be with all of your friends, who will become family, because that’s just how we do things here in the South.
The most customizable races you’ll ever be part of, you can run one, two, or all three days, mix and match your distances, or take on the ultimate challenge of three ultramarathons in three days in three states to earn a 100 miler buckle.
In honor of Memorial Day, a donation for every runner will be given to TAPS, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, offering compassionate care to family members grieving the loss of a service member.
– All courses are paved park paths that are mostly flat. Loops/out-in-backs are 2-3 miles long, depending on location. The Georgia location is in Calhoun, north of Atlanta; the Tennessee location is at Camp Jordan in East Ridge, just off I-75 near Chattanooga, and the Alabama location is in Guntersville.
– All races begin at 7am local time. Note: Our Georgia and Tennessee locations are in Eastern Time, Alabama is in Central.
– Your best bet for round-trip flights is Atlanta. The closest major airport to Guntersville, Alabama (day 3) is Birmingham.
– Register for one day of the series, receive a hat. Two days, receive a hat and an Awesomesauce mason jar. (This is the South, those are drinking glasses to us!) Three days, receive a hat, a mason jar, and a dry bag (perfect for all of those sweaty running clothes!) We don’t mind if you mix and match distances, and you can even change distances mid-race!
– You’ll also receive your choice of a plastic cup or water bottle to use at our waterin’ hole. It keeps the trash down, and helps you figure out which drink is yours. We’ll keep it full all day!
– Rather than give you an ill-fitting shirt in a color you hate, we’ve priced these races low so you can add on things like tank tops, tech shirts, and other fun stuff. Or, add nothing, we won’t judge!
– All distances receive a unique medal. How else will people know you went for a run?
– Strollers are permitted. Pets are not. Have you ever seen a dog attack a bowl of banana pudding? We have. It’s not cute.
– Ten hour time limit means walkers, run-walkers, runners, skippers, and crawlers are welcome. We’re more concerned about you crossing the finish line, not the amount of time it takes you to get there. Unlike other races, we do not pack up until the last runner finishes or 10 hours is up.
– All three races are USATF sanctioned. They are not certified courses and are not Boston qualifiers.
– We have one aid station zone, so you’ll always know exactly what to expect, and you’ll have a convenient place to leave a drop bag that you can access throughout the day.
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Race is okay but the food is great
So I ran this race in 2018 but cannot find my results on the race page. So it may be that my chip time did not register. No idea why. … MORE
So I ran this race in 2018 but cannot find my results on the race page. So it may be that my chip time did not register. No idea why. My Garmin Fenix shows a time of 2:11 though, so that’s what I’ve entered. Not sure if maybe my chip was faulty or if their chip timing wasn’t up to the job.
This course is on a beautiful lake in Guntersville. It’s on a sidewalk that runs along the lake the entire way. However, this is a loop course and I think maybe we had to do 10 or 12 loops, and although it was a small race – maybe 150 people, at most, between all of the races? – it felt crowded the entire time. This was not something I enjoyed and I’ve not run another of the Sweet Southern Discomfort races for this reason.
As I understand it, the race organizers deliberately choose looped courses so that they can have a single aid station, which admittedly does make race organization a heck of a lot easier, I would imagine. And the single aid station is a runner’s dream…. or maybe a nightmare if you can’t control yourself with all of the yummy goodies at the aid station. Literally, this is a smorgasbord of junk food (we’ll call it energy food) that you can eat all along the way. You get your own plastic cup and you write your name on it, and you re-use it each time you come around for a new loop. That part was great, and that’s what attracted me to this race to begin with. I like races with a lot of good food, during or after the race.
Parking was easy, and not more than a 1 minute walk from the start line. Packet pick up was also easy on race day. You’d need to drive to the race though, there isn’t any lodging within easy walking distance.
Beautiful scenery, great food, good organization, but due to the looped and crowded course I’d not do this race again. These are popular races though and it’s not a bad race at all.