Halfway through the 2019-20 Winter Run Series in Wisconsin, we encountered the biggest shift from previous years with the Run into the New Year. This year, the race was moved to City Lights Brewing on the Lower East Side in Milwaukee, and came with a few problems. We’ll get to those in a minute.

Packet pickup for the race was, again, at local running store Performance Running Outfitters. Or you can do race day pickup as well. It was pretty efficient this time, except the scanner didn’t work for my QR code (so why have it?) but that’s no problem.

The race’s pre-race email was where issues started to arise. Since the Start/Finish line was in the parking lot of the brewery, there would be no parking at the venue. Nor street parking on that road. Runners were told to either street park on St Paul Ave, or park at the intermodal lot (almost 2 miles away).

On social media, runners asked if there would be a shuttle from the lot to the race. The race replied that there wouldn’t be one. Yikes. A couple hours later, though, the race reversed that stance and said they decided to have a shuttle. I decided to forgo that entirely and park at the casino about 6 blocks away.

The other big red flag was that, for pre-race, there would be no indoor facilities. For a winter race. In Wisconsin.

Fortunately (I don’t know if the race or brewery made the call) City Lights Brewing opened their doors early for runners, allowing a place to stay warm. With no bag check at the race, we were told we couldn’t leave our bags in the brewery, so most people set them outside.

The course itself wasn’t too bad. After 2 inches of snow overnight, lots of us were concerned about the course. But the roads were (mostly) cleared and for the first time in the series, we didn’t have to run on the shoulder; but got to use the entire lane.

The 5k was one out and back and the 10k did it twice. I questioned the wisdom of starting the 10k at 10am and the 5k at 10:05, but whatever. The course itself had one long gradual climb, but you got most of that back on the downhill. Not flat, but not HILLY. For what it’s worth, we were told there would be an aid station, but I never saw one.

In the post race, the same issues that have plagued the series persisted. Slow in posting results, and ever slower giving out age group awards. For this one, runners had to physically show the results on their phone to claim awards. And the awards tent was also outside.

Basically, this race was the same takeaway as the previous two in the series. The race course itself is solid. The rest of the race day experience isn’t very good.