It’s not the organizers’ fault the weather was so darned hot; the city forced them to push the race to June (bad, bad idea). It’s a shame about what’s happened with this race. The organizers want to do a good job, and they’re not in it to make a profit, but with the Rock n Roll people coming to town, this race seems to have suffered.
With that said, I ran the 5K instead of the half marathon because I knew the conditions would be unhealthful. Most of the course is on asphalt and that just makes the heat worse. These comments apply to the 5K:
There was a mile marker for mile 1, but no markers for miles 2 or 3 that I could see (I looked hard. Did I just miss them?) I use a Garmin, which ordinarily would make mile markers less important, but this time the mile markers might have helped.
I started my kick with what I thought was a half mile to go in the race. Unfortunately, the finishing banner was obscured by a hill, so I didn’t discover until too late that there was about 500m (more than a quarter mile) extra tacked on to the end of the race. It was about 3.4 miles in all. So my finishing time was slow AND I was cramping from starting my kick too soon. Ouch! Since it was so hot, I got out of there ASAP. The next day, when race results went up online, mine were missing. Oh well.
On the other hand, the shirt was made of a nice material and they had medals for everyone. If I had known they would run out of them, I would have just left it for someone else, though. Sorry for those who didn’t get them.