Primo’s Run For Education Half Marathon

I’ve now only done a few runs, but this one seems to be on the low end of organized compared to others.
I used to do the Primo’s Run when I was a tiny little kid. This I why, during my «let’s become a runner» phase (which I continue to stay in now that I’ve gotten the hang of it) I decided to come back and give it a try as an adult.
I arrived early, having researched the parking situation and seen that if I needed/​wanted to leave right after I run (which I did), I’d have to park fairly far away from the actual event. I parked and hesitated a moment, wondering if I should bring my things with me (water bottle, snack, gear bag for my extra clothes… it was cold that morning!) and went ahead and brought it with me. I was early, so no thanks on freezing while I wait!
I get to registration and receive my packet. I could already see that there was confusion within registration lines and there was no labeling or guidance whatsoever. I asked about gear check, to which everyone looked at me like deer in headlights. I even asked the woman who appeared to be guiding people into the registration lines, and when she gave me the same look and said she’d ask… well… she went right over to the same woman I had already gotten NO answer from. Sweet.
No gear check?!? Seriously? I volunteered at a 10k of under 1000 participants, and even we had a gear check. It was really shocking to see that they didn’t provide anything for runners to leave their things in a safe place! I fortunately found a volunteer who shall remain nameless who kindly hid my things under the table where she was stationed, and I was able to leave them there until I finished the race.
Overall, it’s a run for a good cause. Will I be back? Maybe. For nostalgia sake, or maybe for the ½ marathon if I can work myself up to that for next year!

This fun, on the small side, pretty much flat half marathon was a pretty great experience. I ran it for the first time this year (2009) and managed to PR by a large margin. There were only about 500 runners, and while the course wasn’t particularly scenic, I had a good time overall. Here’s the break down of my review:
Organization — 5 stars: The course has lots of volunteers along the way to shout out your time at the mile markers and to make sure you don’t go off course (not really an issue, but still nice). At mile 10 you join up with the 5k runners, of whom there are MANY, at which point there was a separate lane for the half marathon runners. That part was especially appreciated. The sweat bag check in at the start was also very helpful, because I got pretty cold after the race and it was nice to be able to put on a clean, dry jacket. The race is a point to point course, and a shuttle was provided back to the starting line.
A couple of snafus: There were mile markers missing at miles 1 and 10, which was a little frustrating. Also, the post race snacks were pretty meager. If I run this race again, I’ll definitely put a sandwich in my sweats bag.
Crowd support — 4 stars. There weren’t heaps and heaps of people watching, like at other races I’ve run, but there were enough people out there who were excited to see us run and grateful that the proceeds of the race would go to support the San Ramon school district.
Course — 3 stars: The course winds through residential areas of Danville and San Ramon, which is pretty dull, especially considering the number of races on the Bay Area that run through awesome, gorgeous terrain. That said, the race entrance fee is relatively low, and the course is flat and comfortable to run.
Like I said, I had a great time running this race and I might do it again next year.