The expo was held in a hotel in downtown Albany. I believe it was a Hilton Garden Inn, but am not sure. I think that was also the official race hotel. The expo did have booths and merchandise that you could purchase, unlike the other races I had done thus far, but it wasn't huge. I didn't have much time to check it out, because on my drive down, my maintenance light in my car came on, and I needed to find an oil change place before the city shut down for the weekend.
After finding a place open at 5pm on a Friday (that charged an arm and a leg) and getting my oil changed, I headed to my cheap hotel. I stayed in the Baymont Inn. It was cheap (remember the goal is to save PTO and money and still get to race), but functional. The hotel actually gave the runners a nice welcome packet with bottled water and some other goodies. It was across the street from a Publix and Target, so I decided to walk across the street to buy my typical race morning breakfast in case the hotel breakfast was not acceptable. The hotel had a refrigerator to store my cold drinks.
After buying my breakfast, it was time for my traditional pre-race dinner. I headed to the IHOP to meet my co-worker, who was also in town to run the race. I had my pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast, and it was delicious, as usual. Afterwards, I walked across the street to Walmart to buy some sunscreen and a throw away jacket (which I got for $3!). Then it was time to go back to my hotel, set my clothes out, and get some sleep.
The next morning, I ate breakfast in the hotel lobby and headed over to the start line. It was very easy to get to, and they had plenty of parking. I parked close to the start line and waited in my car until it was close to start time.
They had music blasting and plenty of porta potties at the start line. The problem was the placement of the porta potties, though. The line for the bathroom was basically the same place as where the runners line up to start. You couldn't really tell where the line started and where people were just standing and waiting to start. There were no corrals, but they did have pace groups. I found the 4-hour pace group and hung out. My co-worker met me at the pace group, and we started together.
The four-hour pacer was very excited and talked a lot - almost too much. So we moved ahead of her and ended up in the 3:55 pace group. I was pretty impressed with the number of pace groups. They had one for every five minutes under the 4-hours. We stayed with the 3:55 group for almost half of the race.
The first part of the race takes you into a small college in the city. Then you go out onto a long stretch of a somewhat busy road for several miles. After what seems like forever, it turns into a nice neighborhood area. The houses are nice, and the road is lined with trees. The course gets a little hillier in the neighborhoods, but the hills aren't bad. They are gently rolling. That is about the halfway point, so the rest of the race is making your way back into town. Once you get close to the finish line, you run thought an old train station and downhill into the park. The race ends in the park under a bridge close to downtown and next to the river. The walk back to the car is a short couple of blocks, and passes by the Ray Charles statue.
The water stops were well supported with volunteers and plenty of cups with water and Gatorade. I don't remember any times when I couldn't get what I wanted. There were pockets of fans throughout the race that cheered for all the runners.
The park at the end of the race had tents set up with beer, food, and water. There were tables under one tent with chairs so you could sit and eat the food. The medical tent was nearby and ready to tend to any runners needs. There were plenty of people hanging around the finish and cheering the runners on.
The metal was a number 10 (it was the 10th anniversary of the race) with a snickers bar as the one, and it was pretty big and heavy. The shirt was a gender-specific dri-fit shirt that looks like a snickers bar. They also gave you a snickers bar in the race packet, a water bottle, and a magnet to save the date for the next year's race.
This was my favorite Georgia race thus far. I give this race 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would definitely do this race again.
No comments:
Post a Comment