Five Reasons I'm Running the Bluegrass this Weekend

For Friday this week, I wanted to share 5 reasons that brought me to Lexington, Kentucky this weekend!

I planned for this weekend to be a preparatory half-marathon leading up to my training for the Pittsburgh Marathon.   I penciled everything in to the training calendar, secured the time off work, and planned initially to run the Just a Short Run in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

But then I kept hearing about a different half the same weekend, the Run the Bluegrass Half Marathon and 7-Miler in Lexington, Kentucky.  So why did I decide to make the 6-hour trek down to the Bluegrass State?

1. Rave Reviews on Social Media

Of course, when I got the notion of Run the Bluegrass in my scheming mind, I took to Twitter to see what people were really saying about the race.  All of my #runChat respondents immediately let me know what a great race it was, and how strongly they recommended it.

2. The Race Director's Presence on Social Media

When I first asked the question about whether I should run the race, I tagged the @RunTheBluegrass handle.  Within 30 minutes, the race director, Eric, replied directly to me, reaching out an offer to answer any questions I had.  Awesome!  Some races are barely staggering into the digital age, and this one has not only a staff member, but the race director himself awaiting and answering runners' Twitter queries.

About a month later, the race directors apparently had an issue receiving the order of their Nike tech shirts, as a workers strike on the West coast has been holding up many imports from Asia.  Eric was quickly on social media, and on the Run the Bluegrass Facebook page, he kept runners in the loop as to whether the tech shirts were coming, and what they needed to know/expect.  Total transparency is a win in my book!

3.  Unique Course and Events

I will be the first to admit that I don't know a ton about Lexington, but when I think about the city and its state, 3 things come to my mind:  Horses, Bourbon, and Basketball.  The Run the Bluegrass course and race weekend totally embrace the first 2 of those items.  The course runs through many thoroughbred farms, and the expo (which I'm leaving to attend shortly) is held at a local racetrack.  The race weekend events include many tours, which seems to be such a unique facet of this race.  Not a lot of races organize tours in the days leading up to the event, but Run the Bluegrass runners can opt to tour stables, taste bourbon, meet horses, tour distilleries, and so much more.

4. Unique Swag

Since we are in Bourbon country, one unique piece of race swag is that the Woodford Reserve distillery makes a Special Edition Single Barrel Bourbon just for the race.  How cool is that!  I've also been told there will be bourbon balls and Kentucky Ale microbrews at the expo and post-race.  That's my kind of carbo loading!

On the topic of the delayed tech shirts from before, Run the Bluegrass has channeled that spirit of uniqueness into solving the shirt problem, and will be giving runners lightweight, great-looking, American-made hoodies instead of the usual tech shirts.  I can't wait to try mine on!

The race also features a Director's Challenge where runners can state their time goal prior to the race and, if they achieve it, they get to keep a barrel stave from Woodford Reserve as their trophy.

5. 50 States

One day, I'd like to become a "50 Stater" aka run a Marathon and/or Half in each of our 50 states.  For someone who aspires to this goal, I have sadly few states already checked off the list.  Kentucky is a state I've never raced in.  In fact, I'm not sure that I've really ever visited the state, save for passing through on the way to Tennessee or points south.  I tend to favor a lot of urban races (and Disney races, however you classify those).  This will be not only a new state, but a new type of adventure.


Now, I'm off to the expo and know that I am going to have a great experience, but, as a parting photo, let me share a little bit of that unique, Lexington spirit.  I am currently staying with Airbnb, and am sharing my yard with these guys!

This city gal is ready to embrace everything that Bluegrass country is about to offer!

* All photos in this blog post copied from www.runthebluegrass.org.  Except chickens.  The chicken photo is totally mine.  Also all opinions expressed are my own as I have not received any compensation - I'm just super excited about this race weekend! *

Pittsburgh Marathon Expo

Among the most exciting parts of participating in a medium or large race is attending the expo.  While it doesn't have the slickness of a Nike Women's Expotique or the sheer enormity of a RunDisney extravaganza, Pittsburgh puts on a pretty good show complete with everything from massages to a speaker series to live spin classes.

The expo opened at 11:00 this morning.  11:00 on a Friday seemed like a reasonable time to go, a time that would be relatively uncrowded and drama free.  Needless to say, I was surprised when I turned the corner on Liberty Ave towards the Convention Center to face this:

Is this the line for Space Mountain?

Kennywood opens this weekend.  Could this be the line for the Potato Patch?

Despite the fact that the expo was advertised to open at 11:00, runners waited in queue until 11:20 to be let in.  A last minute volunteer shortage?  Some sort of snafu with bibs or shirts?  Nobody seemed to know.  For a medium-sized race field, this was a positively Disney-sized line!

Eventually, doors opened.  After heading to the right and grabbing bibs and shirts, the expo cleverly winds runners through a sea of vendors before we could retrieve goodie bags and race shirts on the far side of the Convention Center. This was my second Pgh Marathon expo, so I had a sense of what vendors to expect.   

So many yinzer-approved choices at Fresh Factory!

The Yinzer crowd was predictably thick at Fresh Factory, where I snagged a new shirt to be worn at the pet walk tomorrow.   A ton of apparel was available from other vendors including local shops like True Runner and 'Burgh-headquartered sporting goods superstore Dick's.  

The Dick's Sporting Goods pop-up shop on a mock Pittsburgh bridge.

Dick's Sporting Goods set up their pop-up shop on a "bridge" modeled after Pittsburgh's three sisters bridges over the Allegheny River.  The mock bridge was an aesthetic highlight of the expo and will no doubt win the award for "Most Instagrammed" feature.  Dick's also sold the official marathon gear, manufactured by Asics.  Personally, I had mixed feelings about the selection.  The women's gear appeared to be mostly pink, purple, and geared toward the half-marathon.  I assure you, I wasn't too thrilled about this.  However, on the men's side of things, I found a shirt that I loved both the design and the fit of.

Running up the incline is probably easier than running into Oakland in mile 12.

A lot of the features at the expo were expected - t-shirt sales, massages, info for other races.  There was one thing this year that was new and fairly interesting.  Dormont (and soon to be South Side) cycling studio Club Cycle set up a cycling studio in the expo and held classes throughout the day!  Their unique concept involves spin classes underscored by a live DJ where cyclists track the stats of their ride real-time on a digital scoreboard.  Once I'm recovered from the race, Club Cycle is definitely on my to-do list.

Cycling class with instructor Stacie and DJ Bill Bara

There were a ton of other activities.  I didn't attend the speaker series, but I did talk for a while with members of the NuGo pace team about pacing strategies, got the skinny from the Garmin rep on their family of watches (there may be a Forerunner 220 in my future), and enjoyed a deep discount on the EQT 10-miler and the Liberty Mile by registering at the Expo.  Other highlights included the modern Expo standard wall of all runners' names as well as the Every Runner Has a Reason wall where runners used metallic markers to pen their personal reasons for running.

Haley Buchanan - That's me!

An inspirational note on the #RunFor wall

And a mouth-watering one!  I too run for booze milkshakes!

In the end, I learned some things, I bought some things, and I generally got geared up for this weekend's races.  However, as is always the case, there is someone else in my life that got the lion's share of the swag.  Thanks to the Pet Walk's generous goodie bag and the cornucopia of canine treats at the Purina Pro Plan booth, someone's got a lot of new treats and toys in his life:

This isn't even all of his loot.

I will wear bandana if I can has treats!

Have a great race weekend everyone!