First of all, I love the RnR series races and would ALWAYS recommend them, especially for first time half marathoners. You always will have people surrounding you and the spectators are great!

Registration: Online registration went smoothly and I even opted in to get a full photo package of my race pictures which only cost 19.99, totally worth it in my opinion if you want on course photos. Even though, I didn't have too many this time.

Expo: Registration at the Expo was extremely quick and simple. They wanted you to have your bib# so you could go to that section of the table and quickly receive your bibs. I had a 5k and 10k bib and was able to walk right up and get them and my shirt without waiting in any line. I went Friday around 4pm. My expo experiences in the past few years with races have been a bit of a decline. I remember these races having huge expos and tons of freebies. Not so much at this one, but it was still bigger than others I have been too in the past. I appreciated free beef jerky because that is expensive!

Race Day: My corral was completely off and I didn't realize until I was looking at the pacers standing in the corral I was originally assigned. It was so crowded that I just got in the 2:10 corral where I found space. I realized that it was so crowded that people were on the other side of the fences and would just merge in once we started to move. Like others said, the corrals need to be wider and allow more space between, or at least spread out the corrals and pacers because there was barely space between the 2:10 and 2:20 pacers when lined up.

I thought it went really smooth with sending off each corral and we started 6 minutes after everyone else. It seemed pretty spaced out to me once we got going, but I also went and ran on the sidewalks to get around people in order to get into my groove. I wrote this in my blog post, but I think having porta potties in the first mile would be beneficial because much like a lot of people, I have nervous bathroom breaks and I really needed to pee. I thought it would go away once we got going but it was all I could think about. Thankfully there was a big line of them somewhere between 2 and 3 miles. My GPS was way off with everyone around and the buildings, so my miles were off.

I actually thought the amount of aid and water/gatorade stations was satisfactory. I didn't think it was too hot, in fact I thought we had beautiful weather with overcast, some sprinkles and a nice breeze, but I'm also from southern Illinois and had been running in 80-90 degrees and 97% humidity. I appreciated the sprinklers and open fire hydrants to run through. I loved the remembrance part of the race with American Flags lining the way. It was beautiful.

My favorite part of the race was between mile 9 and 10 where there was a small out and back and you could high five the runners who were going the other direction. It was great to see other Bibrave runners and then other runners wanting high fives.

I will also agree, the tunnel under McCormick Place was sketchy. There was no air, it was really dark and I was really trying to just focus on my footing but you could barely even see. I felt I definitely slowed down for my safety. It did feel amazing once you got out of the tunnel and the breeze hit! Whoever decided to put an incline in the last two miles was devilish and it almost mentally took me out, but I made it through! Honestly, that was the most "hill" like experience in the whole race in my opinion.

I will 100% do this race in the future because it was flat and fun! I probably would stay out in the burbs and take transportation in to the race to save money though. It took a lot out of my wallet to stay close to the race and the weekend.