Terrapin 5K & Music Festival

I loved the Terrapin 5K & Music Festival last year and I thought it was even better this year. Although it felt like there were more people than last year it turns out there were almost 1000 less runners at the Terrapin 5K than there were in 2012. But with just under 2500 runners it still felt like a big event. I went to physical therapy in the morning and then ran the race in the evening and felt okay. Looking at the results I was surprised that I finished with a 23:43 (I thought I was around 24:30) and my knee feels okay today... so maybe the physical therapy is actually working.

Anyway, my full review is up at Newcity.com so I'll just hit some high points here.

• I thought everything was super well-organized. 

• I was able to drop off my gear-check bag within 5 seconds of approaching the gear check station. And I was also able to pick it up within the same amount of time, though I think this had to do with the fact that my number put me in Wave F and I finished faster than most people in that wave. When I was getting my gear check bag, the people with numbers from 1-500 had formed a pretty lengthy line. And I'd assume my line would have been that long a few minutes after I arrived.
• Same thing with the food and beer lines. Very well-organized... but maybe they didn't have enough staff to support these. When I finished things were moving quickly.... but within about ten minutes the lines were incredibly long, especially for beer. I think they needed about twice as many staff for these booths.
• The waves were released twice as fast as expected. Rather than releasing Wave A, Wave B, etc, they released Waves A & B together, followed by Waves C&D. This even took the announcer a little time to figure out. I think it wasn't until my wave (Waves E&F) that he really figured out that they were releasing two waves at once. Still, the waves were small enough that this made sense. And it meant I got onto the course in 4 minutes instead of 10 minutes, so that's a plus.
• The music was really good. There were seven bands so there was music playing when I showed up at  6:30 and there was music playing when I crossed the finish line and there was music playing up until I left at 9:30. That's a good event.
• The post-race party is a great place to hang out. I saw Cindy, Erica, Fuzzy and Natalie after the race and got to hang out and eat food off of a frisbee while listening to music on the grass. That's a pretty good post-race party.

So, anyway, I felt good about calling the Terrapin 5K one of the top 5 5Ks in Chicago last year. I think it might make that list again for 2013.

In conclusion, here are some people waiting for the race to start and then some food on a frisbee: