Last year I ran the 10K for this race and had a very positive experience. This year, I ran the half marathon and I didn't have the same experience as last year. I had my packet mailed to me because I would be traveling from out of town. The race was on Saturday, and I didn't receive my bib until Thursday. We delayed traveling to Memphis to see if I would get my bib before we left. Luckily, the mail ran early that Thursday because it finally arrived.

You do have to pay for race day parking, but we are told this before the start of the race. No biggie. The race start was a bit chaotic because people didn't know the race had started. All of the sudden fireworks were going off and it was go time. If you weren't at the front, you weren't going to know the race started.

The route of the race was nice, and I enjoyed it for the most part. No race is perfect, but this route was better than I expected and hoped. I got to see parts of the city I wouldn't normally see. My main complaint about the route is cars driving in the lines that were for runnings. This happened to me a lot. In fact, I got a tapped by a car. Not a fun experience. There was a police presence throughout the race, but there were parts of the race that needed that presence and it wasn't there. Toward the end of the race, cars were driving in the running lanes and driving across the route. It was a bit disturbing. This was kind of dishearting because I was running by myself for the last chunk of the race (and I finished with loads of runners behind me 45 minutes before the time limit).

The finish line looked like the race was over when I finished at the 3 hours 15 minute mark. People were walking on the street, standing the middle of the street taking pictures, standing on the finish line taking pictures, and people were just standing around., so you had to run around people to even finish the race. Was there an announcer for this event? If there was, no one was there when I finished.

There was no food at the end except "veggie burgers" which was a piece of zuchinni, onion, and squash on a bun. Everything else was gone and there were still people out on the course who would finish well within the time limit for the race.

I ran this race because I had a great experience with the 10k last year, but my half marathon experience was lacking in the last 3 miles...and that's all I can really remember when it comes to writing this review. I'm glad I was able to run this race, but I'm not sure I would run the half marathon, again.