Terry Leger's Staging Area

It was a great event with both scenery and hills that live up to their reputation.

Overall the race was very well organized but suffered from a lack of communication to participants. There was a statement from them that start times and parking information would be sent before the race date and that never happened. So up until the night before people were asking on their FB page what time was the start.

So if you are planning on running it, let me just clear up the start time question for you. You need to be on the property by 7:30 because there is only one road leading into the property which is the same road runners go out on. So they need everyone there and the road cleared by 7:30 for an 8:00 start time. All distances start at 8:00. Start waves are assigned during registration. The first few waves are the half marathoners then 10K and 5K waves. The first wave starts at 8:00 and then another every few minutes. The start ran pretty smooth once everyone understood what was happening, but that was not well communicated before the race so it made for some confusion.

This was the first year at the new location and the start was delayed a few minutes because it took longer to get everyone in and the road cleared than they expected so they may ask runners to arrive earlier in the future or move the start time. But overall, they handled it pretty well for a first run at that location. There was plenty of parking and it was a short walk to the start / finish so no drop bag. The parking lot was readily accessible before and after.

Expo was fair and worth attending. There is a large upsell push for this event, VIP parking, private tours, Bourbon and just about everything else so be prepared for that.

Swag was OK, a decent cotton pullover hoodie which is actually pretty comfortable and wearable. The finishers medals were very nice and what you would expect from an event in thoroughbred country.

The course runs out through the countryside on two lane county roads. The roads were closed or coned off with local Sheriff deputies blocking the intersections. Plenty of aid stations, every couple miles or so on the half course, and water, snacks and a beer at the finish line.

Overall I would definitely recommend this event. A beautiful run through the Kentucky countryside on closed roads and a well run event.

Pros-
– It doubles with the Wineglass Marathon in New York.

Cons-
– The course is scenic but the whole course smells like cow manure. You will need a strong stomach to finish.
– Unless you ae planning to run a sub 2:30 half, you will need to know the course. They had picked up all of the cones leading to the finish by the time I got there so I had to run around a while to find the finish line. I ended up running close to 15 miles all together.