-
Jacksonville,
Florida,
United States - August
- 3 miles/5K
- Road Race
- Event Website
Jessica
Jacksonville, Florida, United StatesOverall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
So this race took a year off in 2014 so I was really excited to see it back. I did the 2 previous ones in 2012 and 2013. This year was by far the best overall but there was still a couple hiccups.
Registration: Online for a reasonable price. I got it for $20 about a month before the race.
Expo: Packet pickup at any of the 1stplacesports locations. Not a real "expo." There was a post-race expo with some vendors and freebies. There was a giant wheel to spin for prizes but it was $10 per spin cash only and I don't run with cash. Nor do I pay to spin a wheel.
Photos: Free by 904fitness and posted the same day online. Had to go through all of them to find/tag but it was nice that they were free. Also paid pics by Speedy Banana. The pics were on the field so that was pretty cool.
Course: This is what makes this my favorite 5k. It's DEFINITELY not a PR course but it's so much fun to run on the Jaguars practice field and up and down the stadium ramps and around the field. Plus I loved seeing so many people in their Jags gear.
Aid stations: Very chaotic with major bottlenecking. I skipped the aid station and just stopped at a water fountain inside the stadium.
Medal/swag: AWESOME medal with the Jags logo on it. Also the Tshirt was dry fit but they used 3 different companies so I had to try on 5 shirts to find one that fit right. One brand's small was another brand's large. It was apparently like that for the men's shirts too.
Food: Bananas, bars, nothing fancy. No free beer.
Parking: Free parking in lot J at the stadium. Parking pass was in the race packets.
1st place sports tried doing 1 competitive wave, a walker wave, and 2 "fun run" waves. We were in the 2nd "fun run" wave but there were still a TON of walkers, all up front of course. It would have been nice to inform people of race etiquette even though it's wasn't competitive. I got bottlenecked a few times. Even though I wasn't competing I still wanted a good time. Maybe they can work on that for next year.
Overall I liked it and will be back! GO JAGUARS!