I did the 2017 mini, and the race itself was nice. It was very flat and there was a TON of support along the route, both official and in the form people of Louisville out on their porches cheering you on. I loved the moral support from the spectators more than anything! The course wasn't pretty in the same way as some of the others I've seen, but it was interesting to see Louisville up close and personal. I loved seeing the inner city and lower income neighborhoods like that, and seeing people out on their porches cheering us on gave me faith in humanity! At one point, we ran past what I assume was a nursing home and the residents were outside cheering. Somewhere else, what appeared to be students from a school we ran past came out on a weekend to cheer! At one place someone had set up a seat for their cat at their open window and the cat was watching the runners.

Expo was confusing and poorly laid out. I think it would benefit the vendors as well if it was easier to navigate and see everyone. I didn't see the booth to get my Bluegrass Classic sticker and had a little trouble getting my extra medal after the race. Fortunately I had brought by RunTheBluegrass medal for photo ops, so that worked out. The man handing them out was also very nice about it.

The parking situation was kind of awful. We are not particularly familiar with Louisville despite living only an hour away, so we parked in a lot that was marked on the map we got at expo, so we assumed that it was a good place to park, and when we tried to leave there was no way out. We were completely trapped due to combination of road closures for the race and one-way streets. Fortunately a nice officer directed us to a way out (the wrong way down a one way street), but it would have been nice to have known ahead of time to avoid the panic and circling back through the parking garage.

There was an hour and half delay for weather, which was frustrating but justified. Unfortunately, that left us starting the run during the worst of the downpour and then running into the midday heat and humidity. Definitely not a PR for me. By the time we started, I was already hungry, so I got stuck eating most of my gummies right away. I can only imagine how the full marathoners felt. Some of the stops were handing out orange slices, though, and that was amazing. By the time I finished the race, I was ready to devour absolutely everything they handed me, but the food situation was so poorly organized for the number of people running that it took 15 minutes to get anything at all. I ended up eating the banana and getting another while I was waiting to get to the next food handout. I know it would be a ton of work ahead of time, but if they could pre-bag food packs together like at Run the Bluegrass, it would keep the huge backup of people at bay.

Another thing that I'd like to see would be some less pricey hotels available as "official" ones. I know secondhand that, due to the delayed start, people in unofficial hotels had some trouble meeting checkout deadlines and didn't have the benefit of the hotel being "official" and therefore more likely to accommodate in some way. It also would made me more likely to stay in Louisville the night before and avoid driving into the city two days in a row (Expo and race day) and the 4 am raceday wakeup.

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!

I did this race for the first time in 2016 and will probably be back to do it again. It is the largest 5K I have run to date, but it was better organized than some of the smaller ones I've run. Parking is easy because Keeneland is ready for that kind of a crowd. The course is pretty and not too hilly. The start is organized by expected time to finish so you can (kind of) avoid spending your first mile dodging slower folks or being dodged constantly. I like that dogs are allowed, but I think that people with dogs/strollers should start 5-10 minutes later than people without. Many of them are faster than the runners ahead and end up catching up quickly if they start at the same time, but at the back of the pack. Maybe walkers could start with them, too, to avoid getting caught up to?

In any case, I enjoyed this race.