The good: everyone was very nice, aid stations were plentiful, first 10 miles of the course were awesomely fast, shady, and beautiful, the medal is really cool, the post race stuff was really good, and I got an 11-minute PR! Oh, and I'm from Florida and got here a few days early to acclimate to the elevation and I had zero issues.

Now, despite how much longer my complaints will be, I want you to know that I do recommend this race and would run it again.

The bad: the shirts are boring (dark gray tiny logo on a black shirt), the bussing/parking situation is terrible (more on that later), the race logistics were not good (more on that too), and the course is only downhill for 10 miles. After that it is as often flat and sunny as downhill or shady, and sometimes up hill, including the last stretch before finishing! Ugh! And finally, even though my bib tested fine at the expo, and even though I made sure it wasn't covered, and even though I heard a beep at every timing mat, they have no record that I ran it other than pictures of me on course. I have no idea why. I had to submit to them my own data from my Garmin, so I have no idea what my splits were beyond my memory if I looked at my watch, and I can't use this race for any proof of time submissions. EXTREMELY disappointing. That's the entire reason I chose this race.

OK, so, the bussing. First, they are very vocal that the last bus from the parking lot will leave at 5:30. This is apparently quite untrue, as several busses pulled up well after 6am. One pulled up to drop off people at 6:45, when the race was supposed to start. Do you know how much better I would've felt it I could've slept till 6:00 and gotten on a bus at 6:30 like they did?! Don't tell us we need to be there at a certain time if we don't. Also, my hotel was one of the race hotels and their busses left no later than 4:30, so lucky me got to wake up at 4am and sit up in the cold for 2.5 hours. Yes - 2.5 hours. Because the race started about half an hour late. Oh, and I spent the last hour of that absolutely freezing, because they lied and said the bag truck would be closed at 6:20, and it didn't close until after 7am. I can't even figure out why they want us up there so early when they keep a lane open the entire time anyway. There's no need to make us sit in the cold that long. Also, the half parking is really quite far from the finish, so if you go that route you have to take a shuttle from the finish to that lot to your car to drive back to where you stayed. Sheesh.

So yeah. Despite these pretty big issues, which did really bother me (especially the chip not working so I'm out a proof of time), I still liked the race and would do another Revel. I think I would only do one that's actually all downhill though. Those uphills at the end after going down the whole time were so hard. Worth it for the PR though, although I can't even use mine for anything since it's just my Garmin data.