RunTheBluegrass 2017 was my first half marathon and it was absolutely amazing. It may have made me very biased about subsequent experiences. The course was difficult, but beautiful and absolutely worth it. The support during the race was wonderful (except for one water stop where, by the time I got there, it was just one poor woman and a child trying to hand out cups). I was thrilled that there was SWORD on course, but that's a personal preference. There were enough porta-potties to accomodate the number of runners (though there was a line for the first two bathroom stops).

Expo was easy to navigate and well laid-out. Everyone was visible and no one blended into clutter of the area. The Half Classic stickers were highly visible and right near the shirt pickup. I spent some serious money at that expo because I could easily see all of the amazing things people were selling.

Parking was also VERY easy, a huge benefit to having the race somewhere like Keeneland that's ready to handle crowds anyway. We got to park up near the old main gate, which meant we got to see horses on the track first thing!!!

The post-race expo was also amazing. They had all of the snacks for runners pre-separated and just handed you a bag, which kept the crowd moving nicely. There was also tons of free food outside of that. I LOVED that Ethereal was there for the free beer we got! Nothing better than a good stout post-race! It was also super awesome that you could pay for medal engraving ahead of time. I bet that got the engravers way more traffic than they would have had otherwise.

All in all, this race was just about perfect. I heard that there were some timing issues, but I didn't experience that. I'd 100% recommend this to anyone looking to do a half marathon, 7 miler, or 3.65 miler and will absolutely participate again!