I hate to give races bad reviews, but this was not a well organized race to me. First off, the race started at noon...in May...in Reno. This makes for a very hot race! It was already over 80 degrees at race start!

At the start line, there was a man with a megaphone, he was talking to us about the race course and then he suddenly said, ok, go. All of the racers just stood there. We weren't sure if that meant the race started or not. He said again, ok, go. A few people started kind of walking, but stopping still not sure of what to do. He finally said, that means run. So the race started. I think he should have at least done a countdown or something more than "ok, go" immediately after talking about the race course. Most people weren't honestly paying attention. Don't most megaphones have that bull horn noise? That would have worked too.

The course was poorly marked. Although I was able to tell which way to go (most 5k race courses in Reno seem to follow this same course), but I saw a lot of people cutting across the grass, turning down the wrong streets. There were not enough volunteers to guide runners in the right direction.

As for the swag, when I went to bib pickup, they told us that the t-shirts they ordered had gotten lost in mail, so there would be no t-shirts that year. Honestly, the t-shirt is one of the reasons I sign up for so many races each year, so that was a bummer. All I got was a hot race and a bib number .Also, the bib pick-up was in a gym in the downtown are with nothing but paid parking around. I think they should move the pick-up to somewhere that is a little more accessible.

In the races defense, this was the very first year for the event. I hope they are able to improve upon it next year.