The cooper River Bridge run is one of the largest 10ks in the US capped off at 40,000 participants. The race is a point to point race starting in Mount Pleasant, over the Author Ravenel Jr Bridge and ending by Marion Square in downtown Charleston, South Carolina.
To start out the weekend the race expo is held at the North Charleston Coliseum, it runs for two days all day long. They have almost 100 vendors ranging from shoes to clothes to nutrition and also sign ups for other local races. In your swag bag you received: cotton t shirt, (the logo every year is chosen by an art contest), buff, plastic and mesh bag, hand towel, coupons for the expo, and some nutritional snacks. Also once I got my bib number I turned the corner to see volunteer handing out cartons, yes cartons of flavored applesauce for free.
The race is a point-to-point which make parking a little tricky. My best advice would be to park downtown early and catch one of free shuttles across the bridge. They do have a shuttle for your clothes that they will bring to the finish line ** be sure to have a clear bag (like they one they give you in your for your swag bag). The bridge is closed for most of the day so if you park on the starting line/mt pleasant side you will not be able to get back for a few hours after you finish. The good thing is that the post race party at Marion Square has a huge live band lots of food and drink specials at the local bars. It does get extremely crowed if you get there late but it does clear out quickly. My friends and I were able to find a spot of the grass to sit and stretch and listen to the band.
The race itself was very fun, they had different bands set up every other mile, even on top of the bridge. There were plenty of aid station with both water and Gatorade. The bridge is about 2.5 miles long and it falls in the middle of the race. The long downhill portion of the bridge ends about a mile from the finish line so you get a nice reprieve before the end.
The tips I would give for this race would be:
- book reservations early
-park early, Charleston is a hard town to get around especially when the largest bridge is closed for most of the day.
Even if you are not a fan of large races I would still recommend you run this race at least once!

Located just south of Charleston, SC is the small island of Kiawah. If you are vacationing for this race I suggest booking everything in advance, because unless you are willing to pay $250 at the Sanctuary you are going to have to stay in Charleston, which is about a 45 min drive. There are no hotels on Johns Island, which you must drive through to get to Kiawah. I had the privilege of living oh johns island and having family that lives on Kiawah, so parking for the race for me was easy. For others there was a parking lot about 3 miles from the start line where runners were bused in.
The expo was was well stocked with many different vendors and lots of sales. They had anything you could want for race day, especially if you had forgotten something at home. The only downfall was the “race swag” you received was a long sleeve tech shirt. it was nice but for the $ you pay for the race I was hoping for something a bit more. What did make up for it was the post race party, they had a few food trucks, plenty of drinks, hot cocoa included, and a free buffet.
The course itself was very scenic. There were views of big beautiful houses, a few golf courses, and lots of amazing views of the water. In previous year pasted the marathon course was just double of the half, which to me is not fun. This year there was only a few miles that you had to double, so that made me happy. Being that Kiawah is an island there was absolutely no elevation changes, I think we were actually below sea level during the entire run. BUT it is a BQ course so you will probably do well if you are coming down from the mountains to try and qualify. I normally run my longer races with a camelbak so I do not stop at the aid stations, that being said there seemed to be enough. With the temperature being in the 40s that day I would say that they had an adequate amount, but they could have had something other than just water and Gatorade.
All-in-all it was a well planned race with no hiccups and no real complaints. Would definitely recommenced this race!