The Covid situation has created a challenging time for race directors all around the country. The Statesman Cap has been historically one of the best races in Texas, drawing participants to Austin for race weekend for years. This year, they offered a virtual option so runners could still participate. They did a great job offering local race routes, promoting the race date (April 11), even though you have through the remainder of the month to complete your race, and offering times for drive-thru packet pickups if you're in the Austin area.

I had an opportunity to participate in this virtual event and ran on April 11. Living near Dallas, I'm a few hours from Austin, so I chose my own route along White Rock Lake. This created a beautiful race day experience, with great views, easy parking, and relatively flat terrain. I truly appreciate the virtual options races have offered over the last year due to the restrictions throughout the country.

With all of that said, I rated the race management lower than I normally would because the team behind the virtual race struggled with ensuring those registered actually received their SWAG prior to race day. Like I mentioned above, they offered drive-thru packet pickups, but for those not in Austin, we had to have those packets mailed. The ball was dropped on the organization of mailing packets, as the main objective should be having packets in hand for your participants by race day. I hope to have my SWAG in the coming week, but we'll see when it arrives.

I've heard great things about the in-person race as this is one of the biggest and most popular races in Texas. I would definitely do the live version in the future, but would likely opt out of the virtual option given the challenges this year.