What an incredible race! If you're unfamiliar with Gritty, he's got quite a personality and the race organizers did a great job capturing that personality at the event. Whether it was the pre-race ceremonies or the various obstacles and gimmicks on-course, Gritty was certainly out in full force for the 5k.

The course itself had only slight elevation at a few points but is mostly flat and you have a nice downhill push at the finish line. Great for nailing your PR (unless you get distracted by the hot dog buffet at the 3-mile mark). The course is loaded with "Gritty's distractions" as a ploy to help him win the race. Whether it be silly string gauntlets, orange fog machines, or the last-second hot dogs, runners have plenty of entertainment on course.

This being the inaugural year of the race, it was incredibly well run. The expo was just a simple packet pickup and I was in and out in under 10 minutes. The only hiccup on race day was that the race was a lot more popular I think then they were anticipating. The traffic started to back up on the road leading to the course and they had to delay the start by 30-minutes to get everyone into the parking lots.

Other than that, the race ran incredibly smoothly and it was AMAZING seeing how seriously participants took the costume challenge. The variety of homemade Gritty tributes was truly impressive.

If you're looking for a fall 5k I would highly recommend the Gritty 5k in the future. There's plenty of fun and activities for the whole family.