I've run quite a few half marathons over the last several years... everything from RunDisney races at Disneyland and Walt Disney World to local races including Urban Cow, Shamrock'n, CIM, and SF Giant Race and this one still needs a bit of work as it is lacking organization and polish.
This is the second year of the half marathon but the twelfth year for the Run Rocklin series of 5K and 12K races. The half marathon had a registration limit of 600. That makes for a nice run that's not too congested. If you want congested, think Disney races.
The website definitely could use some reorganization as information was spotty, typos were prevalent, and not up to usual professional website standards.
There was a small race expo that had vendor and sponsor tents set up. There were places that the runners would be able to grab orange juice, water, after race snacks, and free food samples.
Pre-race bib pickup was slightly disorganized as questions asked were often answered with "I'm not sure or I don't know, you'd have to ask Larry." I picked up my race bib and tech shirt the day before.
There were no signs set up to note where the start of the race would be. I assumed that the location of the two sets of Chrono-B tracking mats would be the start line. When the pacers started showing up near the tracking mats, then I figured that I was in the right place. The finish line was clearly delineated and set off with pretty balloons, timing clock, and sign.
The race schedule was as follows:
7:45 AM for the kids run start
8:00 AM for the 12K and 1/2 marathon start
8:20 for the 5K start
9:30 for the Kids 1 mile start
As I expected, the course ran through Rocklin through mostly residential areas. Miles 1.5-5.5 was a consistent uphill climb. Between miles 2 and 3.5, it was a fairly steep incline. For those who plan on participating in the subsequent years, make sure to train for hill runs. If not, it will catch you off guard and can sap some of your reserves. It was nice to run back downhill after hitting the summit and turning around. Weaving through the residential areas and seeing the beautiful houses made it an interesting run.
In every other race that I have participated in, there were more water/ energy drink stations than here. There were no safety stations along the course but I did see a couple of police/fire department vehicles patrol the course. The one thing that kind of worried me was that there were only course safety marshals where there were turns. I think they needed more of the safety marshals to ensure vehicular traffic would not mingle so closely with the runners but we were running through a residential area. There were spots where cars were going pretty fast and we were running pretty close to the traffic. I was kind of paranoid so I would constantly look back over my shoulders if I were running in the direction with traffic. Most of the times we were running in the bike lanes but between miles 1.5 and 7, we were running where traffic flows quickly.
The race had a hard limit of 4 hours. After crossing the finish line and hanging around for a bit, I noticed that around the 3 hour mark, the volunteers started cleaning up and started taking down signs. I guess there weren't too many stragglers running at that point but I thought that they should have waited a bit longer? Also, it seemed like the refreshments and food were all but gone around that time. I think they should have a dedicated refreshment section for just runners who would need the recharge after this race. In other races that I've participated in, there is a runners' finish line corral where you are entitled to grab fruit, water, energy drinks, etc... but not here. Here, the food was open for everyone even for those just passing by. I can't say anything negative about that but in the future, for race participants who pay, there should be guaranteed refreshments for them whether they finish in 1-1/2 hours or 4 hours. I was able to grab an orange juice plus, a bottled water, a danish, and a banana after the race. I made sure to only grab one of each so that other runners after me would have some refreshments available but after hanging around awhile, I saw that many runners were only able to get orange juice and water.
All-in-all, it was an enjoyable local race. Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to be negative but trying to offer constructive criticisms here. You really can't compare a small-ish local race like Run Rocklin with the big Rock-n-Roll, Disney, Urban Cow, etc races in terms of organization, number of volunteers, refreshments, and water stations, but I think with each race, there should be lessons learned that can be applied to the next race. I wish the best of luck to the race organizers and future races and hope that they will do better next year. read more
