The Distance:
Half Marathon-13.1 miles
The Course:
From a winery in Napa, California to the town square in Sonoma, this course was BEAUTIFUL! There were some "rolling hills." Race started by going sharply down hill for maybe .1 of a mile and then going up a very steep hill or maybe .2mi. I was very nervous about the hills for this race. There were definitely hills, but the good news is what goes up, must come down. Also, the hills stopped around mile 6 or 7 and the rest of the course was nice and flat (just when I needed it!)
The important stuff:
- T-Shirt (because it is really all for the t-shirt, right?): White t-shirt with their logo (a woman runner, kneeling down with a sheep jumping over her back) on the back of the t-shirt. Not impressed. The t-shirt quality wasn't great, and while i liked the picture, i never once saw a sheep in wine country....So I'm not sure what they were going for. My friend wore hers to the start because she was cold and just discarded it there. Enough said.
- Goody Bag: Not half bad, my friends. I had left Philadelphia without my cliff shot blocks (or jellies, as I refer to them), which are my preferred snack of choice during a long run/race (I feel another post coming on...). I figured I'd just buy some at the expo, those places are usually crawling with sugared gelatin passing for sports food. However, no such luck. I was planning on just borrowing some of my friend's, however, but to my great excitement there was a pack in the goody bag! And a mini-cliff bar! Good job folks, good job. Nothing else of merit in the bag really, except a free tasting at one of the wineries in the area...
- Expo: Pitiful. That would be the one word I would use to describe it. First of all, they tried to charge me $10 to park at the expo. I don't think so. I drove across the street and parked for free. Second of all, lack of the aforementioned jellies. Third of all, barely any gear. The expo was held in a huge room, but there were hardly any venders. My friend was looking for a hat and could even find one of those! Needless to say, not much time was spent at the expo-we just went and drank more wine instead!
- Water/Bathrooms: There were johny-on-the-spots a plenty both at the start and at each water stop throughout the course (there was even a hand washing station at the start, which is something you'll never see at a Philadelphia race). There was a water stop every 2 miles of the race, and while I successfully got a glass o water at each one, they had RUN OUT of water at the 6 mile water stop by the time my running compadres had gotten there. So that means they ran from mile 4 to mile 8 without water. Not fun, not fun at all. I find running out of water unforgivable, because they know how many people are running the race (3000), so I think it would be easy to be prepared. They also had no Gaterade, but some gross, watered down sports drink instead.
- Other Participants: 3000 racers, 2000 were woman and 1000 were men. I think this race brought out a lot of groups of females participating in a Napa wine/running weekend. There are worse things...
My Results:
My Uniform: black spandex shorts, gray sportsbra, blue tank--all Nike
My Shoes: Asics
Overall Rank: 1281
Finish time: 2:22:53
I'm still trying to break 2:20! Perhaps on the Distance run. Overall, this was a LOVELY weekend. Part of me thinks it would have been just as nice to go to wine country and eat and drink, but I have to say I felt much better about eating and drinking because I ran the race.
The only downfall of this race is that is fills up quickly (the race filled up in February) so you have to commit early.
Would I do the race again? Definitely, as long as I can afford to make the trip!
