Registration:
Easy, online registration which closed a couple of days before the event. Pick-up was to be held on the Friday (Sydney CBD location) and out at the race location on the Saturday. I was unable to attend the pre-event packet pickup but was able to organise pick-up the morning of the race with no issues.

Expo:
Unfortunately I didn’t make the Expo given that I’m out of the Sydney area. There was a small area at the start line where event information, volunteer check-in, access to water and bag check was (along with real toilets!). There was a bigger festival area across the park at the finish line.

Parking: Public parking out at Homebush was a plenty, with specific directions to the nearest carpark without being impacted by the road closures. Parking was $5 an hour to the maximum of $25 a day.

Swag:
No swag for either the 10k or 5k race.

Course:
The course started and finished on opposite sides of Cathy Freeman Park at Olympic Park, and overall was a nice & flat 10K, with the exception of a slight incline around the 8.5K mark. This area is full of parkland, and awesome buildings that were purposely built for the 2000 Olympic Games, so it’s a great way to see the area. Unfortunately there were a couple of other events going on which meant that the later time saw crowds trying to cross the route to their destination, leading to some confusion as runners head towards the finish line.

The course was all on road, with the exception of pavement around the stadium.

There were 3 water stations on the 10K course at 2km, 4km and 8.5km. The later stations also offered Hydrolyte as the electrolyte drink of choice. It was a warm morning so all water stations were welcomed. I also took my own electrolyte drink.

There is a water table set up as you exit the runners chute and bananas were offered.

The medal for the Summer Starter was the same for either the 5K or 10K (so I could have received the same medal for half the effort!!), which made sense for the volunteers when both sets of runners were coming down the chute at the same time.

Also the volunteers were a plenty, and were in awesome spirits cheering all the runners on and were more than happy to help. There was also plenty of medical staff who were responding to issues quite quickly.

This is definitely a great race to kickstart your Summer running!