It's a summer tradition that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I am guessing it is easier to plan for a race where there is a cap. You set it at an arbitrary number and you know exactly what you need. The Bellin Run went into the last day of registration at over 18,500, which was already flirting with a record. They then had a walk-up crowd of over 1,000, paying a premium of $35, just to be a part of it. How do you do that? The organizers get major points for being able to handle that. The Bellin Run also gets major points for its recruiting efforts of getting lots of people to do this that otherwise would not have bothered. My wife and I participated as a member of the Brown County team in the Corporate Challenge. I am guessing the organizers give the groups ideas of how to recruit people to run, offer perks, and more. Our perks included an extra gift and 50% off the registration fee. There was also efforts to get kids and other Team Triumph members to participate in the weekend's events.
WHAT WASN'T SO AWESOME ABOUT THIS RACE

I ran dumb. That's about it. I have run this race a number of times, so I should know how to adjust to the very few shortcoming of this race. The Bellin Run has the same problems the Chicago Marathon has when it comes to having lots of people in a small area and sharing your start line with your finish line. It's hard to imagine the race growing much more because of this because I simply don't know where the people will go. Registration exceeded 20,000, but it only had about 1,000 more finishers. What happens when the gap between registrants and finishers closes? It's such a tradition and I'm sure the course hasn't changed much over the years. There's a reason why the header for this section doesn't have harsher language. It doesn't suck, it just isn't awesome. I'm curious to see how they will change as the numbers keep growing and growing. I have no doubt that they will do it.

For more, check out my blog entry: http://tkmarathonman.blogspot.com/2013/06/race-report-bellin-run-10k.html

Link to this review