I signed up for this race only 2 weeks before. Honestly, I had never heard of it, and sometimes I'm not crazy about small town half marathons. This one definitely proved me wrong. I arrived about an hour before start time and got a great parking spot about 100 feet from the start line. I went over and picked up my packet from the friendly volunteers, happily used one of the abundant clean porta-potties and then went back to my car to stay warm until closer to start time. The long sleeved tech shirt included in my race swag was very nice quality. Other than that, the bag was filled with your usual chapstick, pen and info on other races. The race started right at 8am, and did offer chip timing. The course was absolutely beautiful. The massive Mississippi River is such an amazing sight to take in. Now, if you are not familiar with Alton, this cute little town is nestled against the Mississippi river. It is always pretty windy over there, so I signed up knowing gusty winds were certainly possible. I am pleased to say that the wind wasn't near as bad as I feared. As for elevation, you can not call this race flat. However, these would be the hills that people refer to as long and rolling. I was also thrilled with how the city of Alton rerouted traffic. I felt safe from traffic the entire time. There weren't many water stations, maybe in future years they will be able to add to that. For nutrition, they had cyclists offering Twizzlers. This was a little strange to me, but it was detailed in the race info, so I planned ahead and brought my own hydration and nutrition. After the race they had an abundance of typical post race food: bananas, fresh bagels and pretzels. Finishers received a nice medal commemorating the bridge you just ran across. Overall, it was the nicest small town half marathon I've ran to date. I would definitely recommend it and will probably do it again.