Speaking of chocolate. The post race fun included Maggie Speak performing live on stage, a kids zone, fondue tent, Ghirardelli Square and hot chocolate tent. A total of 15,000 pounds of Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa were brewed and 30,000 pounds of chocolate melted.
You've already seen my post about the Hot Chocolate "technical runner's jacket" but having now run the race, I can give a full review of the complete experience.
The overall impression I had was that the race organizers simply were not prepared for the amount of runners who registered.
The 5k has 12,702 people recorded as crossing the finish line. To give a little perspective, the Chicago Marathon had a record high number of finishers this year when 38,132 people crossed the finish line.
Hot Chocolate managed to close Columbus for the Start and Finish line, but 90% of the race took place along the lakefront path, parking lots and on/off ramps of Lake Shore Drive. Wrong, that was the tent where they later handed out hot chocolate.
The race was overwhelmingly crowded, but that isn't rare in big racing events. Totally fine. Personally I ran a great race, I finished in 1 hour, 38 minutes for an average pace of 10:32, a time I am very happy with. Unfortunately I lost Eileen & spent the rest of the race running quickly trying to catch up & find her. Bummer. People were forced to walk many times because there simply was not enough room for a large group of people to run. Also I didn't get any hot chocolate because the spots I went to ran out.
