I'm still in shock and shaking a little bit due to the response I just received from the Race Director. Needless to say I will never run another Race Cancer sponsored run, which makes me sad because I lost my high school boyfriend and grandmother to cancer when I was very young so helping for cancer research is close to my heart.
I've run many of these races, including this one since 2012. They've always been a great experience, and I said that in my email and my review (btw I NEVER write a review before writing to the business as I feel like it's only fair.) . I also teach yoga and consider myself a pretty kind person overall.
I signed up and convinced my husband and a friend to join me. I signed up my husband Friday evening and it said the 5 miler was sold out, so I just put him in for the 5k, nbd. Then I went on Saturday morning to look for my friend and it said something like "whoops not sold out" . also please email me us for anything. Now it's the day before, I get that, but my husband prefered to do the 5 miler so I emailed asking to switch him since it apparently was not switched out. No response, ever ok fine, NBD. I picked up the bibs on Saturday as it clearly stated on the application (which was new this year). Great swag per usual, still have a hat, neck choke and gloves that I wear from prior years.
Race started on time, area for party looked good and that they had a found a big space to accommodate runners and bathroom line was quick and easy.
Run is good, flat, well marked and measured correctly. There were just 2 water stops with 2-3 people, both very small tables with limited water. Volunteers seemed to have a hard time keeping up and you had to weave through people to get water and/or wait for them to pour it for you. Again, kind of sucks but not the worst I've seen. The finish was a cluster. No one was telling people to keep moving so there was a wall of people as soon as you crossed the line and no water in sight. I like to walk and drink my water but I chose to just walk for a minute and find water after. I went back to the finish and couldn't find any water. I did see a big tent where you could print your time, super cool but would think water might be a bit more important. Walked around the corner to a line of people waiting to get water from a small table of tubs of water and cups. I'm STILL thinking ok fine, it's hard to find volunteers and things happen, etc. I'll grab 2 then go back to have one for my husband and friend when they finish. We went into the tent for a drink but were starting to get cold so we decided we will just enter our raffle tickets and head out. We could not find the table anywhere and couldn't find anyone to help. I went to the guy checking bands who said he had no information and to find someone in an orange jacket. He said he was sorry and others have asked questions and he is unable to answer. I went to the ID check and found a man who directed me to the table, great. I was texting with a pregnant friend who ran and she mentioned the water situation was terrible as well.
I wasn't going to say or send anything but I wanted them to know how unhappy people were so that they can improve next year! When I still hadn't heard from the race about changing bibs (yes I realize the race over) I sent a very nice email about my experience. Didn't post any reviews, just sent to the email provided. Originally I received a response that apologized they didn't get back to me as they were busy - totally fine. This evening I received a horrific email from what I can only assume was the Race Director, didn't even bother to write his name after his email. He started out by telling me that they made serious "exceptions" for me to pick up my bibs on race day and sent a picture of the box you had to check about bib pickup saying "did you happen to miss this box you had to check?"- not true, bibs were picked up for my party on Saturday around 4pm as yes I did read that part. Then he proceeded to call me very angry and that I wasn't welcome back. He also mentioned that the setup was the same from last year so I should have known - when I said in my email I wasn't able to attend. The defensiveness and rude response was shocking to say the least. I'm tempted to post it. I've worked in Customer Service for 15 years, never would I ever send something like that and I don't think I've ever had such a response.
Best of luck, plenty of other races out there!