Surftown Half Marathon Recap

The 2013 finisher's medal

All the way in the southwest corner of Rhode Island in Westerly, the Surftown Half Marathon is a flat, fast and scenic course that is provides a good opportunity to run fast.

The race is essentially a figure 8. You run two loops that are connected with a straightaway, which you run twice (once in each direction). For a race that's not huge, it was surprising how many people were along the course cheering runners on. It's not a city race or anything, but people were vocal, especially the many great volunteers.

There are several points of the race where you can take in a nice view of the water, but the course is mostly through small neighborhoods and streets. If you're looking for a race that's all about ocean views, try a different one in Rhode Island, such as Newport.

The biggest downside to the race was that its start was delayed about 15 minutes because of the long bathroom lines. And course, they didn't have nearly enough bathrooms.

Side note: I don't understand why races don't have enough of the portable bathrooms brought in. When there are hundreds or thousands of runners, you're going to need more then 15-20 bathrooms. Every time this happens (which is more frequently than anyone would hope) it bewilders me.

In any case, I enjoyed the race overall. It was low-key but still had good competition and a well organized race. I'm not sure if I'll run it again because of I had to wake up really early (4:55am) to drive there, but if I were local this would be on my yearly race calendar.

Overall Ranking: 7 (out of 10)
Course: 8
T-shirt: 7
Medal: 7