The good: This was a cute home town race.
The bad: There were definitely some hills to push over!

Expo: in true 2019 fashion; I didnt go. There was an option to pick up my packet at the race so that's what I did.
Easy peasy!

Race communication: i dont recall a whole lot of communication; but I do remember the email about parking... so it was good?

Race:
Parking was fantastic. They reserve a field and bus you to the begining.
It's a great course. Not 100% closed; but I guess that's okay. The only thing is the community support which was nice also served lemonade at mile 9 which was a bit hard to swallow.
The course is hilly. Especially in the beginning.
But there are amish families walking to church and mountains and lakes. So beautiful

Swag and finish medal. It was a neat medal. It doubles as a bottle opener;)

I would totally do this again and encourage you to do it to

The good: This was a cute home town race.
The bad: There were definitely some hills to push over!

Expo: in true 2019 fashion; I didnt go. There was an option to pick up my packet at the race so that's what I did.
Easy peasy!

Race communication: i dont recall a whole lot of communication; but I do remember the email about parking... so it was good?

Race:
Parking was fantastic. They reserve a field and bus you to the begining.
It's a great course. Not 100% closed; but I guess that's okay. The only thing is the community support which was nice also served lemonade at mile 9 which was a bit hard to swallow.
The course is hilly. Especially in the beginning.
But there are amish families walking to church and mountains and lakes. So beautiful

Swag and finish medal. It was a neat medal. It doubles as a bottle opener;)

I would totally do this again and encourage you to do it to

1. Do this race.
2. Do it again.

The good: everything but if I had to pick; mile 16

The bad: nothing really. If I had to pick SOMETHING in would say the stretch of road between 4 and 8. But even that had an awesome drum band.

Start at the beginning.
When bibrave announced the opportunity to run this race on their behalf; I jumped at the opportunity. I did a bike race in the area and was amazed with the scenery.

Race info
I think it's pretty neat that the race has a bilingual page for our French Canadian Brethren!
As far as information; the race website has it all.
They also send out alerts frequently through email. That being said...slow down the week before the race RD. I think I received 10 email in the 7 days leading up to the race.

Travel and transportation
The race has a bus service from local hotels to the race start (and back)!!! amazing!
Race management does a great job making the race as accessible as possible to many different price points. If you can swing the extra cost, I highly recommend flying into Burlington airport. The race expo, downtown, and race start/finish are all within 10 minutes of the airport so you can manage without a rental car this way.

The expo was pretty legit.
There were several local vendors, which I appreciated! I liked that I wasn't going to the "same expo" like when you go to a Rock n Roll race. There were some staples like that weird discount place with the black wire racking; but the craft brewer and the maple syrup people were cool.

The course is super easy to spectate if you get there early.
I feel like the entire population of Burlington was on the course cheering.
If they weren't cheering they were volunteering!
There were so many people here!

The course is really amazing.
Between Burlington proper which has really nice brick (colonial looking) houses; and the trees and flowers are blooming; to the bike path which follows the coastline; there is a little bit of everything.
There was even a muddy spot 3/4 of the way through which would have benefited from some planks of wood but even still, it was great.
There was this one neighborhood where the spectators were handing out beer. Thanks guys lol I'll wait to the end.
The course was mostly closed and covered a lot of ground. I'm impressed with the logistics of the course and how everything was administered.
I mentioned 16 and 4-8 earlier.
4-8 are a stretch of road with really cool bridges crossing over it (you're running north then turning around and running south. The overpasses are running east and west.)

16 is when you loop back through down town and the road is lined with people cheering; it felt like I was running the New York City Marathon again.

The finish line is PACKED with people.
Its surprising how many people are there cheering. There's also great amenities
Good food. And the grocery store which sponsors the race hands out a ton of food.

1. Do this race.
2. Do it again.

Let's talk about the Indy Mini and 500 festival.
The good: there's too much good to only have one thing
The bad:... it rained the whole time?

I registered for this race maybe 6 months ago (possibly longer) and I wish I would have signed up for the Vip...but I didn't...and that's life.

Communication leading up to the race was perfectly timed and it was always enough information. Thanks to the reminders; I was reminded that I was doing 2 races today!!! (because it being 6 months ago I completely forgot that I was doing the challenge)

The challenge:
The challenge was a 5K followed by a half marathon and they almost expertly execute this feat.
In the email and the participant guide they tell you to route yourself through runner services and follow the signs. I would only suggest that they have a couple more signs routing folks around the metal people. The volunteers are so jazzed to hand out medals at the end of the 5K and you feel really bad turning them down...so there should be a designated channel instead of just a rough guideline if you get challenge folks around back to the start

The Expo:
This is the 1st expo I believe I have been to all year...and there were a lot of people there!
I think I forgot how crowded these things get.
I want to say that there are close to 30000 participants in the race on Saturday between the 5K and half marathon and while I know it would be hyperbole to say they were all there at 5 o'clock on Friday night...it felt like they were all there at 5 o'clock on Friday night
Despite their big crowds I was able to get my bib, get my wristband for beer and get out really quickly.I kind of know how I want my expo experience to be and because I drove 12 hours to get to the expo I really didn't feel like hanging around a whole lot...
Despite my wanting to leave quickly; there were some really good vendors. I think Orange mud was there; which is kind of cool for a road race, and I wound up stopping to get some nutrition for the race in case I needed it.

The course:
The course is actually really good. I was a fan of going around the zoo... I would have loved to have gone through the zoo but it's probably not practical...
The 5K is the 1st mile of the half marathon and the last pile of the half marathon and then obviously a mile in between
There are a lot of things that I really liked about this course
it was fast and relatively flat which was nice
going around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was kind of epic.
I will tell you that something that will stick with me and something that I think is really impactful is the mile when you get into the Speedway. I can only think of a handful of times where I've been emotional during a race and this was one of them from mile 6 to mile 7 There are pictures of fallen service members which just touched me.
There was music every half mile.
I can't explain it; but there was a this really neat feeling of running past fire trucks holding up water and Gatorade signs… like something out of a movie about a small midwestern town…

The finish festival was legit. There were massage tables and beer and music and food trucks! If it weren't so wet; I would have spent a lot of time there.

This is a great race and a great experience.
I suggest the JW Marriott. They treat runners super well and you can roll out of bed and be at the start line.

I had to steal this quote from my fellow BRP This race is well worth the trip simply based on the history, the tradition, and a very unique 2.5 mile section. Beyond that, this event is incredibly well organized, there is pretty decent crowd support, and it is very evident that the City of Indianapolis (and even the State of Indiana) truly get behind this race.