This half marathon is in its 11th year and this is the first year I ran this home town race. What a great experience. From the expo through the post race celebration this was a class act and I cannot wait to run it next year.

Expo - Easy access downtown Columbus at the convention center with plenty of vendors. The shirt this year was an Under Armour shirt with separate shirts for the men and women. This is a very nice shirt that you will want to wear for more than just working out and running.

Race - The race starts broken up into 5-6 different corrals which are started a few minutes apart so you never feel that you are running on top of another runner during the beginning of the race even though you are running with 15,000 other people. The course is pretty flat as most midwest courses are. The killer came in the last tenth of a mile where you did have to run a couple blocks up hill. On a normal day it would not be a challenge but at the end of the race, it really stretched you to finish hard.

Post Race - Great celebration. Plenty of food and activities. There were blow up slides and such for the kids and food truck and drinks for the adults. This truly could be an all day affair if you wanted. One of the most popular attractions was the booth where you could have your name and chip time engraved on your medal for 10.00. I always struggle with how to best record the time so that I can remember it and this was perfect. The times are posted online as soon as you cross the finish and the engravers look them up for you.