This is my favorite race, hands down. I love the distance, the course, the time of year and of course, the costumes!
I only live about 45 minutes away, so I opted to just get there early on race day and do packet pickup then. On race morning there’s not really an expo, but I am okay with that—it’s not a big expo anyway and it’s totally not worth sitting in tunnel traffic on a Friday afternoon. Parking is free at the VB Convention Center and there's plenty of it, so if you don't mind a short (less than 1 mile, I think) walk back to the car after the race, it's the best place to park. So I got in to pickup my bib and shirt quickly and actually got to use the indoor bathrooms with very little wait time.
Before the race is a good time to scope out all the cool costumes, my favorite was the Wizard of Oz group costume (which happened to win the people’s choice costume).
The corrals were roped off based on estimated pace and each pace group took off in 30 second intervals. It was crowded but the course was wide enough that it wasn’t very difficult to get around slower runners/walkers.
The course:
Flat, fast and depending on the wind (there can be a brutal headwind at times), a perfect course to get a 10K PR. There were 2 water stops and a 3rd stop that had candy corn in little cups.
The finish area/post race party:
I crossed the finish line, collected my medal, water, a banana and my finisher item, a Tervis-like mug with the race logo on it.
I opted not to have the post race food because we had a few errands to run, but otherwise I would have. In years past, I stayed for the chili in a bread bowl and music which was always fun. This year they had the same tunes, but changed the soup to tomato which I hear was pretty tasty.

The medal itself was very cool-it glowed in the dark!
The race shirt is long-sleeved tech fabric that is gender-specific. Kudos to more races providing gender-specific shirts! It too is supposed to glow in the dark, but I couldn’t get mine to do so. Very cool design and I love the color though! (see picture)

Also, new for this year (and I think all J&A races) they are offering free race pictures, so no more paying outrageous prices for your pictures! There were plenty of photographers stationed along the course, so I ended up with a couple of good ones .
Once again, another great Wicked 10K. Can’t wait until next year!!