I know a lot of things went wrong for this new race, but there were some good things about it. The pre-race was ok. I had no problem parking at the blue line metro station as suggested and walked over to the venue. Once there was able to check in relatively easy. Was disappointed that at 8am they only had XL tees left, but I did getone so it wasn’t a total loss. The Zumba warm up was really good. The music was also really great. The emcee was energized and tried to get the crowd into it which was pretty well done.
Then there was the race. First they started 30 minutes late at 9:30. I didn’t understand why the need to wait for more participants given the race ended up not having a timed component at all…which was also disappointing since it was advertised as having a first wave that would be timed. Then the path that you ran on was just that…a dirt path which at some points only one runner at a time could get through. The path was also very bumpy, littered and had fresh horse droppings which made looking up nearly impossible. I wish they had at least raked some of that away before the race started. I then saw some other runners comment that the distance wasn’t even actually a 5K. People with distance watches said it ended up being only 2.77 miles…which made me feel bad when I realized my time wasn’t quite what I thought it was.
The end of the race was ok. The medal was fantastic the line for tacos was too long so I can’t comment on that. I did get my beer though, and there was a bit of a line fo rthat but no worse than at other events in my opinion. I also took the souvenir poto for $5. That was pretty cool and made a nice take away.
The race has posted several times on facebook that they hear the issues loud and clear and will make changes for next year. I would give them a second chance just becaus ethey understood the complaints and didn’t try and deny it. I will see how next year goes…if year two doesn’t look better then they will be done.