As someone who has done many rundisney races I will admit sometimes just a regular race can be a bit boring in comparison. So I am always looking for races that offer a little extra or some pizzazz! So when I came across the Run & Ride race series I thought wow this sounds like fun. Running and an amusement park.
Since Cleveland is the closest to me of the Ride and Race series we decided to do the Cedar Point Quarter Marathon. I do wish it was a 10k. The whole quarter thing throws me off a bit. 6.6 miles.
This race is a great deal if you like amusement parks. You get a free ticket for the park day of race and can add on an additional day for 15.00! It cost me 80.00 to run the race with 2 day park tickets.
We had about 8 ladies in our group so we all split a suite at the Breakers Hote right on property. Note: we still had to drive to expo and to race start.
The expo wasn’t really an expo, just a place to pick up bibs. They did give you a coupon for something similar to a fast pass for some attractions. That was a Bonus! This year they didn’t do shirts for the Quarter Marathon they did baseball hats. This actually made me super happy. I love this hat and wear often. But I heard many complaints from others.
Race morning was very easy, It wasn’t as crowded as I thought a race at Cedar Point would be. I thought there’d be more costumes but not too many. We kept it simple, but threw in some Charlie Brown. They had some Peanuts characters walking around prerace. Who doesn’t love character photos?
The race began and we initially ran a huge loops around parking lot. As we approach mile 2&3 we ran through the park. This was really fun. Lots of great photo ops but I had a good pace (for me) so didn’t stop. However I did notice a few photographers on the course. We exited the park and made our way down the causeway. A beautiful view with water on both sides of us. I did a previous year and it got quite windy here. This year wasn’t so bad. But there was quite a few bugs that kept making their way to my mouth! I’m happy I had my sunglasses. I also noticed a couple photographers on the street. The road part of race is a there and back. When you get to about mile 4 your turn around. Those doing the half continues longer on causeway. I think that may get a bit boring.
I didn’t realize running this it was a Quarter Marathon. I thought it was 10k so I was pushing for a PR and when I didn’t see finish at 6.2 I was gasping for air to get in that extra .4 but made it and got a PR!
Post race they had some great food!! They had bagels with cream cheese and big bottles of chocolate milk and water of course. They had a big pavilion with picnic tables to sit at near by while waiting for others to finish.
I really recommend this race, the medals are cute (could be bigger) and would be nice if they changed a bit year to year. But overall this is a great race.