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| - This was the epitome of a two-star "Meh. I've experience better." race. I've done big races, I've done small races, I've even done other R'n'R races and this was my least enjoyable half marathon experience to date. The novelty of running down the strip at night is cool, but the execution is still lacking.
My annoyance actually began at the expo because I am the person who wants to pick up my number and get the heck out of there. I hate that they funnel you through aisles of booths to escape because seriously guys, I'm not buying anything and it's all the same crap you have at all the other expos so it's not even novel. The one upside was that we came to the expo super late so they weren't charging for parking.
We'd chosen to stay at an off strip hotel because my preference is always to stay off strip, so we ran into some traffic getting to the start on race day - no big deal, we allotted extra time and were fine. What DID waste time and was annoying was the total lack of signage or volunteers who were capable of directing us into the starting festival for gear check. If it hadn't been that there was a large group of people having the same issue, we wouldn't have figured out where the hell to go.
I've done big races before that they try to estimate when your corral will be released (because if it's a 4:30 start but your corral wont' go until 5:05 there's no reason to make you stand around). I would have really appreciated that because there were just SO many people running in SO many corrals, it did take a good 40 minutes after the clock time to get going.
The course itself was fun while on the strip, but as other people have stated in their race reports, everything from the strip over to Fremont really needed better lighting and course support because it still felt super sketchy. I personally had a pretty slow run due to coming off being sick and getting terrible sleep the night before, but I think I was securely middle of the pack and they were out of GU by the time I got to the GU stop. As much as I appreciate all the volunteers at the water stops, giving them a quick professionalism talk before the run wouldn't have hurt either. Many of them were too busy goofing off with each other to keep the cups on their table filled with water or they wouldn't think to tell the runners standing around waiting that the next table had more pre poured cups.
Once I got done shuffling along for 13.1 miles (I'm slow, I already mentioned that), the finish area was just more annoyance. I couldn't find bottled water. Whatever, it's fine, I'll take a gatorade. I had seen the bagels and apples sitting out baking in the sun hours and hours earlier, so no thanks to those. Being forced to walk through the massively long finishers area when I didn't want ANY of the things they were offering (No times a million, I DO NOT NEED A FINISHER PHOTO!) was lame and I would have been super happy if they'd had participant exits on the sides. I get the need to make it a secure area to limit people coming in, but it's ridiculous that they can't let finishers out. It literally look me 15 minutes to trek from the finish line to the end of the secure area with all the people and crap they were being given.
I would be much more forgiving of the event because I get that it is a truly unique experience, but it's way too expensive to not be awesome. Deep down I'm glad I did it - but I'll never do it again; It's just not worth the cost and annoyance.
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