Latest reviews by Rosario

(2015)
"The Night (chaos) run 8k"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management

I was super excited to run at night on Tempe Town Lake, I liked the idea of running at night with no worries about waking up super early in the morning and dealing with Arizona's blasting heat and sun this time of year. I had high expectations for this race (specially because they have been doing it for 30 years) and it fell short that day.
We parked and it was quite a walk to get to the "expo"/ start line, I knew this before hand since I have done other races at Tempe, but I didn't mind the walk. I went to the port-a-johns first thing because I knew there were not enough of them for the amount of people (+1,200 runners).. Sure enough the line got ridiculously long.

There was zero organization at the end, both 5k and 8k started at the same time. I was planning on running with my baby stroller and once I found out we had to do a second small loop I knew it was going to be chaotic to run with the stroller and having to dodge all the walkers. Best decision ever to not run with it, the second small loop was TERRIBLE even without the stroller was hard to stay on pace, easily my split times were 30 seconds slower for the last 2 miles. I think a different start time for 5k and 8k races would have helped, maybe 20 to 30 minutes in between them.

The finish line was dark, I know it was a night run, but they could have done a better job lighting up, I highly recommend to improve it, also it was kinda of weird and confusing to have different finishing lines for each race.
Once I crossed the finish there was no one handing out the medals, I found out medals were on a table by the finish line 15 minutes after finishing the race, so I went and got mine. Medals were just lying there on the table with nobody overseeing who was taking them, this was probably one of the reasons why they ran out of them and people were left without one. Same goes for the post race food, people were just grabbing it left and right, zero supervision to make sure they were runners.
On the good side, medal was super cute, the tech shirt design was cool!.. the scenery was nice with the bridges lighted up and course was well marked and safe. I wouldn't mind doing this race again, if they were to improve the organization. I still had lots of fun.

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(2015)
"Fun race.. overall great experience!"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management

This was a really fun race to run, great organization, awesome shirt and medal, nice flat and fast course (if you are racing). The 10k is two loops which was great since you have people cheering for you all the time, plenty water stations, amazing volunteers, music and many creative costumes. Overall a fantastic experience, I would definitely run it again.
On the down side, it starts LATE, for Arizona 9:00 am means +70 F this time of the year. I finished 1st in my division an there was not a medal or anything for age groups winners..bummer!!!... I ran with my 1 year old daughter in a stroller and once we finished, I asked for a medal for her (each race we have done with her, she has always gotten one) and they told me no, to get one for her was a $5 dollar donation. I didn't have the cash at the moment (neither was I going to spend that money on the medal) so we left without one. Funny thing, there were giving out last year's medals as a prize for the little kids games they had a the finish line. Ohh well.

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