Women's Half Marathon - Rock Hill Edition

By now, you've learned that I love any excuse for a party. Like I am literally game for about anything. So when I was asked about hosting another live event for a virtual race, I was totally in. This time, I hosted a Women's Virtual Half Marathon event. 

So there were a couple of things that appealed to me about this event.

1. The event celebrates ladies. Not saying that men were not welcome to join in, but hey, ladies celebrating ladies is an awesome thing. Of course I wanted to gather my girl squad together for this race!
   
   
2. The race benefitted Girls on the Run. Love GotR! I typically volunteer at their local races here in Rock Hill but due to the whole Covid thing, there haven't been any GotR races, so this was another way to throw some support their way.
   
   
3. The SWAG for this race was NEXT LEVEL! I'm talking $100+ worth of cool stuff including tech shirt, Bondi Band, adorable medal with detachable charm, reusable shop bag, Ultima Replinsher powders and sunscreen. Some really cool stuff. Everything was really brightly colored and everyone received a different Bondi Band so it was fun to see everyone's. (Fun fact: my daughter has already stolen mine)

Next level SWAG

About 15 of us registered for either the 5K or the 10K cause options are awesome and welcoming for every level. I am still on injured reserve or I'd have done the Half (next year). I was registered for the 10K, cause I'm totally fine with walking 6.2 miles. You could even do double and triple play events to earn multiple medals.

For the race day event, I came up with some scenic routes in downtown Rock Hill and gathered supplies for a finish line party on our race day of April 10. The official race dates were the 10th and 11th. The weather was a bit damp, but another beauty of a Virtual is that you can play with the time. 2 ladies decided to do their races the day before to stay dry and 1 was out of the area so she did hers solo but posted on our FB event page. We had coffee, donut holes, Ultima, water and bananas to celebrate after. 

And since I was technically RD for my event and manning the finish line I went out the next morning to put in my 10K at my favorite local trail. Again, Virtual Races = Flexibility.

My solo 10K the next morning

I was very impressed with everything about this Virtual Race. As far as the race management, they were super communicative and supportive. If you tagged them on social media, they always commented. They had a Facebook group for the event that encouraged lots of posting and even had photo tags to decorate your pictures. They held several giveaway events, one of which I won a visor. A friend of mine also won a visor as well so that was cool. One of the ladies was missing something out of her packet and sent them a message and it was immediately resolved. You could tell that they really cared about their racers. 

It was a great event and I'd for sure do it again. I am not sure what next year will hold, whether the event will go live or stay virtual, but either way, I would highly recommend this one. 

A Few Photos From Race Day

*You may have noticed, no disclaimer at the top of this one like many of my other race reviews. As a BibRave Pro, I get lots of great opportunities to run cool races for free in exchange for my honest opinion. This was not one of those opportunities. This race was one I chose to register personally for. Just thought I should mention that so there was no confusion.