Overall:
A small, no-frills race with a nice community feel. I love and support public libraries, so this race to support the Watertown Free Public Library was right up my street!

Pre-race:
Excellent. It was a small enough race (~140 participants) that there was plenty of parking in the free public lot behind the library. Bib pickup was inside the library and was very well organized. If you wanted to register day-of, they had laptops out to access the online app and were accepting PayPal donations to the library as the race fees. Easy-peasy. Also excellent were the real bathrooms at our disposal in the library - a definite bonus!

The one thing that wasn't entirely excellent was finding where the starting line was. The race website only said to go to the library to register if you had missed online registration, but didn't actually say where the race started. I assumed the start would be at the library, but where? In the street out front? Behind in the parking lot? If I had thought to look closely at the course map, I would have seen that the race start was next to the park next to the library, but as it was I had to dig through the library’s facebook page to even find the course map, and once I did find it, it was tiny and a little hard to read. We just followed people as they started moving en masse away from the library and ended up at the starting line.

Swag:
Short-sleeve green tech t-shirts with a cute dinosaur rocking a sweatband. I loved these shirts, but unfortunately, the sizes were unisex and ran massive. However, I have a very hard time faulting the race organizers for this - the race fees were pretty cheap for the area ($25), and went to a good cause (the public library)... sure it's always annoying when race shirts don't fit (especially when they're super cute like this one!), but I'd gladly sacrifice a well fitting race shirt for a fun, inexpensive race that benefits a cause I support.

Race:
[Disclaimer - I walked this race due to a dodgy knee, so my experience may be different from those who ran it.] Mostly quiet course that went through residential neighborhoods after starting on Main Street for several blocks. The streets were open to traffic and I had to wait for the lights at intersections once or twice along the Main Street stretch; I'm not sure if traffic was restricted for the runners, but I would hope so. Each turn in the course had a smiling volunteer with a big, sparkly sign, so staying on the course wasn't an issue at all. The first turn off Main St was up a huge hill, one I was *very* glad not to be running up! There were a few people out in their yards to cheer us on, but for the most part it was a quiet race... at least for those of us bringing up the rear.

Aid stations:
There was a water stop maybe about halfway through the course. It was quite a humid day and I remember wishing there were another water stop along the way.

Course scenery:
Very suburban/residential. Fun for me because I used to live in Watertown and the race gave me a chance to explore some neighborhoods I hadn't visited before.

Post-race:
No frills. I was the last to finish, well after the runners, so I don't know if I missed awards or anything. The PA guy was still there to announce my victoriously slow finish, and volunteers were still there to hand me water, both of which I appreciated. People sort of milled around a little, but the weather wasn't great and the organizers packed up pretty quickly after I finished.

Room for improvement:
I'd love to see more information on next year's race site, specifically about where the starting line is, or an easier-to-read course map in general. I will say, I wrote about this race on my blog, and the organizer contacted me to thank me for both the compliments and critiques, saying that they appreciated hearing ways they could improve the race. It's nice to know they're looking for ways to make an already good race even better!