This is my first review, here goes.

Ok, so the concept of this race was pretty cool. The idea, according to race officials I spoke to was to eventually have this race in every NFL city. This race was to take place at Soldier Field in Chicago. What better pace for a football themed race.

About a week, maybe, before the race I received an email saying the race had been moved to a high school in Wheaton, IL. No where near Downtown Chicago or Soldier Field for that matter. Not a big deal for me, I was going anyway. But by the size of the crowd that showed up it was a problem. A few hundred at max. We were told the race was moved due to Lollapalooza taking over the city for the weekend. Poor planning I guess on the race management. But things happen.

Upon starting the race I checked in and got my bib and city specific shirt for the race, I thought that was pretty cool. It was a regular cotton tee but still neat. The race started, right away there were issues. They told us to look for the arrows painted on the ground for the course, but to make sure which arrows you were following because another race had been there recently. It was very confusing. We started out fine until the first arrow, there were 2. Most of us followed the right arrow, some did not. No one was really sure which to follow. There were no course marshalls at all. We all kept running and following painted arrows. A lot of us ended up running over 5 miles. There was never a marshall to tell us where to go. Once we got to near the finish there were race people scrambling to tell us were to turn, but like I said it was at the end of the race. Another note, there was no water or aid stations. It was a pretty hot day.

I get that there was some lat minute changes due to the race being moved, but to have no water on course or no one to tell you where to go is a big problem.

At the end of the race we were all told that to make up for the mistakes we would all receive an entry into the 2016 race. I still have not heard anything and Chicago is not currently scheduled. It would be awesome if they fulfilled their promise as the runners who came all that way deserve to be compensated. That would be a great move for this race.

In conclusion I cannot say I would recommend this race unless they came through with the race entries and fixed some issues. There were many pro's including plenty of free parking at the high school. Maybe the best race medal I have received. It is a huge Hall Of Fame ring. The shirt was nice, again cotton but cool anyway. I didn't mind the course, it was all in residential areas but nice enough, a few hills. Hall of Famer Dan Hampton was there giving high fives at the finish, but unfortunately a lot of people were sad to see he was gone before they finished due to the course being longer than it should have been.