This summer, I’m running four 5ks for the Women’s Distance Festival. This was my second, and definitely the biggest.
Running in Baltimore is always a lot of fun. It’s a beautiful area, and this race finishes along the harbor, which is gorgeous (and also fun to threaten to shove your running partner into the water). And this race is HUGE! It had a bigger post-race expo than most of the half-marathons I run. Of course, size has good and bad elements.
First off, this race is known for having a great goody bag. Personally, I wasn’t hugely impressed. Sure, it’s more than most races do, but… eh. The race swag included a shirt, a reusable shopping bag (of which I have too many) and in the bag were a few different samples from companies. Definitely things I will use, but nothing to write home about.
One great thing about the race is that it’s newbie friendly. Lots of first timers out there. Lots of people out there who really don’t know race etiquette either. (I should do a post about race etiquette for first-timers. They don’t make me angry because they’re not intentionally breaking etiquette, they just don’t know better. But when I was a newbie, I would have liked to know these things.)
The crowds and the walkers who started too far up meant that we ended up just walking most of the race. That was fun though – I ended up walking a lot of it with a friend’s young daughter. She was exhausted from swimming the entire day before, so this was a struggle for her, but she got through it. And like with my recent 10k, it’s always fun to help another person get through the race.
Will I do this race again? If I’m doing the WDF, then yes. It’s a good way to get in another 5K and a lot of my friends come out for it. It’s a pretty course and it’s fun to see new runners finish their first races. But I just have to remember that this race wasn’t built for speed.
The goody bag has admittedly shrunk in recent years.