Expo
The expo was held at the bottom of the convention center. It was nice but not as big as I thought it would be. I picked up my packet and my friend's packet on the first day. The next day I work at the Navy Air Force Half Marathon booth. The biggest downside of the expo was the music loop during the expo. We heard the same songs over and over again.

Pre Race
The metro opened up early race morning making it easy to meet my friends at the metro station and ride in together. Bag drop off was easy and there were plenty of porta potty lines to choose from so waiting wasn't long. After our bathroom break we made our way down to the corrals. We choose to stand outside the corrals so we could easily stretch and move around without hitting anyone. The starting ceremonies was beautiful with the natural echos off of the nearby buildings.

I have always been a fan of wave starts, but I didn't realize how long I was going to have to wait in the cold, so it was a bit of a downer after the opening ceremonies.

During the race
The course was mostly beautiful. We got to run by some of the monuments and the white house, but the course was definitely hillier than I thought it was suppose to be. I knew mile 6 there was a huge hill but at least Wear Blue was there with their Blue Mile to motivate us up the hill and around the corner. The fried food from some of the local resteraunts made me hungry.

I commend the race officials for putting out constuctions cones in front of the potholes that were filled with water.

The 2nd half of the course would have been really boring if it wasn't for a few college students whom set up DJ booths, offered food, and beverages to keep us runners and walkers entertained.

Due to the rain, the bands were lacking so there weren't as many performers as usual on the course. Unfortunately there was only one band playing music that I would want to listen to while I run. The others were slow songs or polkas.

Post Race
By the time I was finished, I was soaked to the bone and frozen. I couldn't put the emergency blanket around me fast enough. The selection of after race food was nice, though my hand were so cold I could barely hand onto the couple of items I picked up.

The worst part about the whole race was gera pick up. The bags were suppose to be separated alphabetically. Unforuntately there were so many late comers that the last three trucks were force to stay behind to collect those bags instead of leaving on time. This made pick up really challenging. It took me 45 minutes to pick up my bag because my bag was in the 2nd to last truck and there weren't enough volunteers to distribute all of the extra bags. The dozen other UPS trucks had no one waiting around while the last three trucks had close to 200 people waiting for bags.

After I got my gear bag I decided that I wanted my free beer so I made my way over to the beer tent and band so I could drink a cold beer in the freezing rain.

Because I wanted to be cheap, I didn't spend the money for a parking pass so I got to spend another 30 mins or so waiting in the metro line. At least I was smart enough to make sure I had enough money on my card for the trip home so I didn't have to stand in another line to put money on my card.

RNR did reach out to all of the runners concerning the messup with the gear bags. They did inform us that UPS did bring as many trucks as they were told were going to be there. For anyone that was inconvenienced you were sent a coupon $40 off coupon that could be used at any future RnR race through March 2016.

Overall
Even though RnR offered me a coupon for another race, I am not sure I would do another one unless I got in on early pricing. You could easily spend $200 on the race and VIP parking and food. Honestly this race is not worth it.