I realize this was their first event, but some things are inexcusable.
Pre-race
When I signed up for this race, it was located in Boyle Heights. I was looking forward to running through that historic area. I do understand that situations occur that cause changes.
But when you change a race location 30 miles from previous location AND you change the start time from 9 am to noon, you NEED TO SEND A DETAILED EMAIL TO ALL REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS ASAP. I just happened to check the website one day and noticed the words: location Pomona. Their event page on Facebook still had Boyle Heights listed and others sites gave conflicting information.
I emailed and tweeted to the race directors for clarification. It took a long time to get the correct information. If you send out emails to all runners with updates, DO NOT JUST POST LINKS TO 3 SEPARATE SITES. JUST WRITE IN THE EMAIL ANY CHANGES. After it was acknowledged that the race had moved, I got lots if emails telling me to check the links for updates. But there were none, so each email I thought something has changed, and that must be why I got an email. So I would go to all the links and waste my time reading the same info every time.
Day of race- we were locked out if the track till 11. So everyone was just hanging out in the heat of the parking lot. Once we we’re let in no one knew where to go, so again we all just waited around. We could see the festival area in the infield but were not allowed to enter until about 11:30. Again, information to the runners would have been nice.
So we all herded into the infield waiting to hear about the start, where was it? When will it start?
No signage directing to the start. Finally we learned that we were starting on the track and we began the trek over there.
So for very poor pre race communication, I graded them D.
The Course- an average 2.5 mile course. It was definitely not a 5k. One water stop at the halfway mark.
Post Race – a few very nice friendly vendors, some food (I did not buy any). Signage directing to restrooms and the beer would have been helpful. Also why was the water so far from the finish?
There was plenty of cool water and protein bars at the finish.
Overall- they could do much better
The medal was nice. The shirt is great and I love the design.
But better communication is a must.