This was my second time running the race. Despite the adverse conditions (a wind advisory was issued the night before) the organizers still put on a great race. They ended up cancelling the kids race and didn't have any signage on the course, overhead signs and didn't put up all the tents to help keep runners and volunteers safe.

Short, quick lines for the portajohns pre-race which for such a large race is definitely a big deal! (And you can usually find a portajohn with short lines on the course too.)

The course is pretty much flat--super easy! The only downfall to it is Hains Point since there's not much to look at or crowd support since it's a pretty narrow area of the course as a whole. The race overall is pretty crowded, but it becomes even more obvious at this point because it keeps narrowing and widening throughout due to the parking alongside the two lane road.

The course also goes past a lot of monuments so it's a great way to get some sight seeing in! You start at the base of the Washington Monument and run past the Jefferson, Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorials, and under part of the Kennedy Center for the Arts.

One of the pros and cons to the race this year was definitely the cherry blossom blooms being past peak bloom. The first year I ran this race in 2014 the blooms were at their peak and I found that a lot of people stopped in the middle of the course along Hains Point (which if you remember, is already narrow) to get pictures of the trees. So this year thanks to the wind no blooms and fewer selfie driven runners to watch out for!

There's a lottery in December for this race in order to gain entry. You can take your chances and enter, or you can volunteer for the race to bypass the lottery and get in for the following year. That is how I got into this year's race (by chauffeuring an elite athlete in 2015) and I got guaranteed entry into next year's race by helping with packet pickup!

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