The Awesome 80’s Run was an event the whole family enjoyed. I signed up my entire family for this race: my husband, my 11-year old son and my 7-year old daughter. They kids got a kick out of donning some 80’s attire and it was fun seeing all the different costumes people had on.
Fiesta Island was a beautiful venue to hold it at but with over 3,000 participants you had to make sure you got there early enough to get into the area and find parking. We arrived an hour before start time and it took us about 15 minutes to get in and park our car. By the time the race started, a little after 7:00, we could still see a bunch of cars waiting on the freeway trying to exit into Fiesta Island. I heard that many people were allowed to start their race late because they couldn’t get in on time. Some started as late as an hour.
The staging area had several vendors on hand to keep you pre-occupied while you waited. No long lines at the porta-potties that I experienced. A lot of 80’s music playing, and some 90’s music mixed in (Bobby Brown is from the 90’s people!) to get you hyped up.
The course was really nice and flat so you didn’t feel like you had to put in so much effort. It was one loop for the 5k runners and two loops around for the 10k runners. My family and I ran the 5k and saw one water station at Mile 1. When you crossed the finish line you had to turn in your timing chip to get your medal. It was a little confusing at the finish area because people were mingling around. They should have made people exit the area once they collected their medals to avoid the crowding and confusion.
Post Race they had local high school cheerleaders performing for the crowds, which was a nice touch. They also had a band called Past Action Heroes on stage. They were fun to watch and very entertaining! They even threw out some memorabilia to the crowds, like the 80’s sunglasses, fish net gloves, and samples of energy chews. One thing, however, that I witnessed that really turned me off was I saw a young man at the bottom of the stage and the cheerleaders were swarming around him grabbing at something. When I got a closer look I saw that he had a box full of medals and he was trying to get the box open and the girls were pushing and grabbing trying to get one while he was trying to tear it open. My immediate thought was, “Hey, those are for the runners!” I didn’t think it was right to pass those out as freebies and I didn’t know who that guy was or if he was authorized to give them out to the cheerleaders, but I thought it was in poor taste.
Overall, it was a fun event and something I would consider doing again.