I had a great time participating in the Napa Valley Half Marathon!

Their expo may be my new favorite. As soon as you walked into the napa valley mariott, you knew there was a race happening, with signs and photo ops all over the hotel. There were plenty of tables for runners to pick up their bibs, and we had been emailed our bib numbers prior to eace day, which made the process quick. The main room of the expo had a wall of volunteers handing out race shirts and bags. The bags were a pleasant surprise - they were sturdy backpacks that were to be used for gear check, but would make for a nice post-race souvenir. There were vendors, an official race merchandise area, and wine tastings all around the expo. They had the courtyard of the hotel set up with naked wines, who had a wide variety of wines for runners to sample.

On race morning there was a bus option to get runners to the start. We had someone drop us off at the start, since we weren't staying at one of the race hotels, and there was no parking at the start line.

There were no corrals at the start line, but runners seemed to do a good job at placing themselves with the beast pacing team, based off the pace they planned to run.

From the start of the race, this net downhill course was all hills. The rolling hills were never too steep, but they were persistent. I would say maybe there was a total flat region of a half mile over the course of the half.

The aid stations were well manned, with Nuun and water at every stop. The later stations also had gels and fresh fruit. I liked that there were trash bins placed at most mile markers, so that runners had a place to throw their trash rather than dropping it on the road.

The course was scenic, mostly lined with vineyards for the duration of the race. I was even able to spot some hot air balloons taking off as I ran.

At the end of the race the post-race area had plenty of goodies, from hot soup to ice cream samples.

The runner goodie bag included vouchers for buy one get one free tastings from some local vineyards, so we celebrated after the race by taking advantage of that offer at Miner.