Pre-Race:
I didn’t stay long at the expo, but packet pickup went smoothly. It was exactly what you would expect it to be in terms of vendors and size.
The only annoyance was that bike drop off didn’t start until 2pm on Friday, and we arrived at 10am. Wish it had just started when the expo started.
Course:
The run was the same loop, twice, which was kind of annoying. I also didn’t like having to run up and down the pier because it was too steep to run down with a natural stride. Also, they didn’t mark the miles on the run, so it was really hard to figure out how much longer I had to go (no GPS watch).
Volunteers were great. They were enthusiastic about cheering, and actually looked at your bib so they would cheer for you by name, which was enormously helpful.
Post-Race:
For the last couple miles of the run, all I could think about was pizza. They had pizza it at the finish. Win.
Overall:
My first half Ironman. A very well organized race. Can’t say enough about the great volunteers. Pretty cool experience.
(submitted on behalf of Paul Hoban)