• Dublin,
    Ohio,
    United States
  • August
  • 6 miles/10K, 13.1 miles/Half Marathon
  • Road Race
  • Event Website

Caitlin

Columbus, Ohio, United States
11 10
2014
"Hot & Heavy at Emerald City!"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
Caitlin 's thoughts:

This year was my first experience racing Emerald City. It was only my 2nd half marathon so I really didn't know what to expect. All I can say is it was HOT and HUMID! Lets get down to the details.....

Expo-No Expo at Emerald..it's a small-ish race but they did have a great pre-race area with plenty of restrooms and places to hang out.

T-Shirts/SWAG-All runners received the typical race day bag full of coupons and goodies. The race shirt fit well; blue and green to go along with the theme. I'm usually not one to wear many of my race shirts but I actually like this one. It has a great v-neck fit and the quality seemed to be pretty good.

Parking- The race start line was wedged in between a huge shopping plaza and a hospital. I found parking to be extremely easy and there was plenty of it! I know they also offered a shuttle service from some of the near by hotels but overall, I was pretty happy with the ease of parking in the wee hours of the morning. My only complaint would be the exit strategy. It was a little nuts trying to navigate out of the plaza post race.

Elevation Difficulty- Not too bad! This course definitely had some elevation with 3 major hills I can recall. The back half of the race course took you through a metro park and it was generally pretty flat. This course was a good mix..not overly flat but I have seen much worse when it comes to the hills!

Aid Stations- They were okay! They offered Gatorade and water, per usual. Some of the stations even offered GU's, although I'm never one to take those because they just don't jive with my regular nutrition/hydration plan. It felt like some stations were more packed with volunteers vs. others so at times the consistency in hydration availability was up in the air.

Course Scenery- Not my favorite. This race is pretty boring when it comes to scenery/entertainment. The first half is pretty much out in the open/country roads that wind through a very nice neighborhood. The back half is throughout the metro park like I had mentioned before. I prefer a little more scenery on race day, however, I definitely will run this course again. It just helps to know what you can expect!

This is a great bench-marker if you're running a Full in the fall. I used it as my " check-point" to gauge my progress as I was marathon training. I definitely will be back next year! Hopefully it won't be as steamy:)

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