I have very mixed feelings about this race. As some background, this race is tech driven. There are a bunch of software companies in Charleston. Those companies will pay for their employees to do this race. There is a big competition amoung the companies for the best group. They all do different themes which are really cool and have all their employees come dressed up. The awards are for most spirit. Now, because of this, there are very few actual hard core runners who do this race. I am one of the very few people who did this race that was not employeed by one of the 6 large companies that participate.

I do enjoy this event. This year they changed the location of the event so the course was not as pretty. It used to take place downtown but now it was in a park in North Charleston. You start out in a pretty area but immediately hit the road and its just a straight away with a loop back. Extremely boring course with nothing but a few hideous buildings to look at. You finish the race at the same spot as the start in the pretty park.

The race this year was short. My garmin only picked up 2.9 for the course length. The after party is really nice though. There was pizza from a local shop that made great pizza. Downside was they only had one oven to heat it up so the line for pizza was REALLY long. There were tons of beers from local breweries which was fantastic. There is always music and a dance party that happens at the end as well.

Here is my biggest pet peeve. Two years in a row now someone has worn a friends bib and been in the wrong gender/age group. Last year they called out the person who placed 1st in my age group and it turned out to be a guy (I'm a girl) wearing one of his coworkers bibs who couldn't make it. They awarded me 1st place.

This year, I was the 1st overall female and they called someone elses name because the same thing happened. These companies will have employees who will say "hey I'm not gonna make the race, anyone want my bib?" because the race does sell out. These people are not runners who run races a lot and therefore have no idea what a big deal it is that they are wearing someone of the opposite genders bib. So I did speak with the race director and got it sorted out and was awarded 1st overall female afterwards. The awards were nice, gift certificate to local restaurant, 6 month membership to a local gym, and an external sound system for my laptop.