The Dick Beardsley has been on my bucket list for YEARS and I was so excited to run there this year! It certainly did not disappoint.

EXPO: My family and I camped at the American Legion Campground, which is right by the Kent Freeman Arena. After getting the camper parked, I headed over to the expo with a couple of our kids. The expo was very small - no vendors - and quiet (at 6:30 pm). Picking up my packet was very quick! They do have a pasta feed on Friday night and I would like to try that next time I run here.

RACE SWAG: The medal for this year had a great design and feels very high quality. The Half Marathon shirt was a nice blue long sleeve and I am super bummed that I forgot mine in the stands after the race :( The design is amazing!

COURSE: The race starts and ends in the Kent Freeman Arena, which is very nice for those cool fall mornings. They had pacers available for certain goal finish times as well. The course definitely did have those rolling hills and I ended up with about 317 ft of elevation gain. Overall, the course was beautiful - I really enjoyed the lake and looking at the homes there. It was an out-and-back this year due to construction and I didn’t even mind it. I had runner company basically the entire race!

AID STATIONS: I think we had aid stations ever couple miles or so - there were plenty! I mainly took advantage of the water or sports drinks options. There were also gels available at some point, too. The volunteers were amazing!

POST-RACE: The finisher’s table featured COOKIES and ICE CREAM! Yes! Along with bananas and water. The ice cream seriously tasted home made - so good.

LOGISTICS: As I mentioned, we camped at the American Legion Campground about .5 of a mile from the Kent Freeman Arena. This was PERFECT. The campground was quiet and a few runners also camped there. The area felt safe and they had very clean bathrooms and showers available only to campers. I would camp for this race again!

The Dick Beardsley is a great race experience! The size of the race wasn’t overwhelmingly huge but they sure had some fast runners out there. Add this one to your Fall race list! P.S. They have FREE race pictures :)))