I signed up for the St Paddy's Day Half literally less than 20 hours before the start of the event. I've run events from All Community Events before, which helped when trying to find last minute information.

Obviously, since I signed up right before, I went for day of packet pick-up, and didn't go ahead of time. The race emails out bib numbers before the race, so picking up your bib and shirt shouldn't be too much of a hassle. If you didn't bring your phone/that email there is bib look-up as well. Your packet, such that it is, is your bib and the race shirt. This year, we got a sweatshirt, with the race name and sponsor (AMITA must pay a ton of money since their name is almost as big as the race logo). If you've done any ACE race, you probably have at least one of these sweatshirts, so you know they aren't life changing, but not bad either.

Parking was super easy, although I arrived about 90 minutes before race start. When I arrived, there was tons of parking. Once the main lot fills, I'm not sure where you would park. The only reason I gave parking 4 of 5 stars is because the parking lot is on the Half course. Which means the road is closed. Which means leaving is a bit of a hassle; one I would imagine is significantly worse if you run the 5k.

The course was different than what was advertised even the night before. Apparently the race had to go with Plan B due to flooding of the DuPage River. So while saying we ran two loops and an out and back sounds boring, the race did a very good job of breaking it up. If I hadn't seen the mile 10 and 11 mile markers early in the race, I don't know if I would have realized the effectively ran a double loop.

Overall, I had a very positive experience with the race. Maybe I would make a comment about the distance between aid stations, but since it was a backup route, and I didn't exactly do my research on where they were, I have no room to gripe about that.

One thing I have to mention about ACE. The races are all fairly cookie cutter and standard in terms of what you get, the post-race (no beer...sad), etc. But every time their distance is dead on. Almost always completely accurate. It's nice to know that when you sign up for an ACE event, you can be confident you're running the exact distance.