Rebecca Chrystal's Staging Area

13 of my friends and I came to this race for Maryland. A few of us did the marathon, one person did the half marathon, and five of us did the relay.
Registration for the race was a piece of cake. Then… Came the emails. Email upon email upon email. Logistics, reminders, info about bibs, more info. I stopped checking every email because they were coming multiple times a week.
Reading over the relay information made my eyes cross! Directions were provided, but no maps. Not having been to the area before I was riddled with anxiety trying to think how we would get to all of these stops. No shuttle? That’s unusual for a marathon relay.
The day of the race comes and we are told that our start time is 8:30. We arrive only to find that the relay started at 8 AM and one of our teammates might be disqualified? All of us had a reminder that the race started at 8:30 for the relay and the marathon. The start locations for the half marathon and the marathon and the marathon relay were different? Again, we’ve done many relays, and never experienced this.
There were absolutely no mile markers so you had to rely on your own knowledge of where you were in the race at any given time. There were porta potties at the different relay stations, but they were not visible and off to the side. Very little signage as to the direction you were supposed to go. There were long swaths of time where I was by myself, hoping that I was going in the right direction. No Gatorade, as promised in the advertisement but a few water stations.
The swag? Creepy! Although the fit is superb, the graphic design is terrible. I don’t think I will ever wear this shirt. Or maybe that’s the appeal? No clue.
By the time we were done the race, things were getting cleaned up. We felt rushed to grab our swag, grab some snacks, and we totally missed the band. As we grabbed swag, the woman leading the shirt effort was rude and was seemingly bullying other women and was downright nasty. I get that it’s a long day, but this race is making a good deal of money and I’d love to not be sneered at when I ask for the shirt that I purchased.
See the scenery… Stunning! I so enjoyed trotting along the boards. We ran through some of the most beautiful neighborhoods I’ve ever seen. Five stars!
Overall, this can be an incredible race. But needs much better organization, more support throughout the race, and more than a five hour time limit.