The Thompson's Station Dog and Pony Show 5K is a trail run that weaves through the trails at Sarah Benson Park. It starts with the initial climb up to the water tower on a wide trail and then figure eights through the trails on a single track trail for the most part. The trail is mostly hard packed dirt with a few roots along the way, a couple spots of grass, and the first and last .10 on a road, there is about 400 feet of elevation gain over the course of the 5K. The good parts - There was plenty of parking (the race is before the festival opens), it's a cupless race, a small race, and a pretty course. The bad - The course was poorly marked and there was no course map provided before hand or at the race, we would come to intersections and then just guess which way to go. That stinks when you are running and have to come to a stop and guess which way you are supposed to go, just printing off a map and marking it at the check in/timing table would have been so much help. Looking at my Strava flybys, I can see that there were a couple different routes people took because of this, it was just confusing. Strangely enough all the women went one way and the men the other. The other unfortunate thing was the printing on the t-shirts came off in the first wash, I have never had that happen before.
All in all it is a real pretty course, I don't know if I will do it again, but maybe now that I know the course. You get a cotton tshirt with your entry and the Nashville Running Company was giving out discount codes leading up to the race so it was only about $15 to enter if you used them.