Chicago Women's 5K, 10M & Half Marathon Challenge - Chicago, Illinois - Running

- Easy logistics, but room to improve

I was looking for a fall 10 miler, and stumbled upon this one on Facebook. I couldn't find any information about this race- it must have been the first year for it. You could register for a 5K, a 10 miler, or the half marathon challenge which means you run both More...of those races back to back. I stuck with just the 10 miler.

I'll start with the good, which is that it's a nice lakefront course, and the logistics were incredibly easy. It started near some public bathrooms, and the bag check had no crowd and was steps away from the start line. I got there an hour early, but could have gotten there 5 minutes early and started on time. This was likely partially due to the fact that the 5K runners were already starting. The swag was nice and included a cotton t-shirt (you have the option to upgrade to a wicking shirt for $5), macarons, a medal, and there were Clif bars and Propel at the finish line.

My main issues: they falsely advertised many things about this race. Their course map had more aid stations than were on the actual course- and unfortunately, the aid station that went missing was supposed to be at the turnaround point, so that left a big gap between aid station access. Their main presence was on Facebook, which advertised thousands of participants, and it stated that the event was 96% sold out. However, there were no where near that many people there. A quick glance at the results shows about 1000 people. Their webpage also mentioned road closure and parking congestion, but per the race contact email address, there were no road closures.

The course was on the lake front trail, which of course doesn't fully close for events. However, the event's volunteers/staff stationed along the course were paying zero attention to anything. One of them was literally curled up laying down on a jacket, and others were just blatantly talking among themselves. There were race participants stopping in the middle of the trail to take pictures, people were going all over the place and spread out across the whole trail, volunteers at one aid stations weren't handing out water cups- participants had to reach and pick them up from the back of the table, which made the aid stations hard to navigate.

I emailed them with my concerns, and they didn't address any of them. I thought they would at least have an explanation for the missing aid station.