First of all, I had heard a lot of horror stories about the expo and management of this race from 2012 so I was hesitant to sign up at first, but I really wanted to find a race with a fun theme to run with my roommates this past year.

I think because they got so much negative feedback from 2012, the management of this race really picked it up for 2013. The expo was well organized and the aid stations were well staffed and placed.

I will say that the beginning of the race lacked a little organization - though you were assigned a corral it was noted that they were "first come first serve" - which doesn't make much sense to me. It took quite a long time to get to the start line (40 minutes for us!) - this race is very crowded. If you are running it for the 5k it would not be a race to run for time! There are just too many people that you wouldn't be spread out enough in 3 miles. The 15k finally got comfortably spread out by mile 4 or so. Still, the first few miles are ran together with 5k participants so it gets jammed.

There's also this strange part before you turn back north where you are running alongside the highway that was a little weird. As you can imagine, 90/94 isn't very scenic. The route takes the lakefront path up the last few miles, which is very pretty, but the path is narrow for the amount of people running.

Overall, I'd say this is more of a "fun" race to encourage fellow friends to try a 5k or 15k with you. The chocolate at the end of the race is actually pretty great! They give you a fondue bowl of chocolate with several things to dip in it. The tech hoodie is also a big selling point for this race, and the 2013 hoodie was pretty nice - it even had a little zipper in the back to hold keys, etc.

Would I recommend this race to friends that aren't avid runners that want to try out a fun race? Sure. Would I recommend this race to people I know are looking for a more professional race experience? No. Still, my roommates and I had a good time!