Christy Marchel's Staging Area

A lot of people like this race but I struggle to find much I liked. I flew in the day before and because I arrived late I had to pay for bib pickup the morning of. I willingly pay for this when I have to but not without a little annoyance. My major problem with this race is that the organizers were not organized. It was my understanding that this was a new route starting at Talon Winery. However, I left my hotel with an arrival time of just before 7 am by GPS and the race starting at 8 am. There is one road in to the winery. I sat in the line to turn in to park so long that it was after 8 am before I got to the winery. That was TWO miles. Everyone knows the joke, I can run faster than that.
We had to go to the back of the property to park in some fields, not a big deal parking in fields, but the walk from the car to the start line was at least 10 minutes.
By the time I parked, got my bib, I even skipped the porta potty, and got in the crowd at the start line it was 8:30. After standing there a few minutes, me and about 25 others found out that they had already sent off the half marathoners and the people we were standing with were 5Kers. So we were really late starting. It affected me mentally and I almost quit at mile 1.
The medal was nice and the shirt too, but the refreshments at the end were paltry. I got a snickers snack size and cheetos.
I’m sure that the race RD has no control over this, but I was disappointed to be in horse country and only see 1 horse on the whole course.

This was the hilliest race I have ever run and I train on hills. It rained like crazy for this race and we started late. But rain aside, I still didn’t like this race for all the hills, and I found it boring. We ran along fields and more fields. Not even any interesting houses and nothing near the battlefields. It was nice to have the hotel ballroom to stay out of the rain before the start, but I’m glad I stayed elsewhere for lodging. That was hyped up more than it actually was. The expo was ok by actually having a few vendors, but don’t expect to find something specific you might have forgot. I had trouble finding what I needed.

This race is entirely on a greenway in an out and back along a dry creek bed. There is no change in scenery for the entire length. Also, I was running with an injury so not fast. However, when I finished they had already broken down all the vendors and food. I didnt even get a water bottle. There were at least 20 people behind me and I think that the message we got is that we weren’t as important because we were slower.