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Evanston,
Illinois,
United States - June
- 3 miles/5K, 6 miles/10K
- Road Race
- Event Website
Chad
evanston, Illinois, United StatesOverall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
16 years ago, Northwestern University basketball coach, Ricky Byrdsong, was gunned down by a white supremacist in Skokie, IL. Since then, the Evanston YMCA has sponsored the Race Against Hate in honor of Ricky and his family. This event brought out over 5,000 runners and walkers for this amazing community event.
The race gives the options to run 5K, 10K, or a 1 mile kids/family walk.
We registered on race day, which took less than 5 minutes. The shirts this year are great looking tech shirts in a cranberry color. Very nice. Not much in the goodie bags other than ads for other races or services, so the kids were a little disappointed with that. There was plenty of water, bananas, and snacks at the finish line.
The race begins at the north end of Northwestern University's campus. The run takes you south on Sheridan Road, before heading over to the lakefront for a nice loop through campus and along the lake. Very beautiful!
The only criticism is that one of the water stations was not set up in time for the race. There was even a sign saying "water ahead", but there wasn't anything there. So, water was set up at mile 1, and mile 5. It was a hot and humid day (100% humidity), so I really could have used an aid station at mile 3. Not the end of the world, but it didn't help anything either.
No live music post-race, but lots of happy, smiling people.
For serious runners, this is a flat and fast course, with no hills. Most of the participants do the 5k or the 1 mile walk. Since the 10K starts first, there was little/no traffic from slower runners, so there is a lot of opportunity for a fast run.