This was my 3rd year as race director and the 21 st year for Mill Creek Distance Classic.  The Classic features a half marathon on a very challenging course and a 5k.  I have yet to find an experienced marathoner who can run their usual marathon pace for this 1/2, Between the usually nasty weather conditions & the 19 hills it 's truely an adventure.  The highlight of the course is the park itself which an oasis in a old industrial rust belt city. 

   The winter had been a harse one thus far with 24 days of snow in January and record snowfalls in February but the race sign ups had been average or a little above during the early registration.  A break in the weather one week out and a outstanding long range forecast lead to a surge of late sign ups.

   We do packet pickup on Saturday & also Sunday morning before the race.  It was a beautiful weekend so 96 signed up for the race at packet pick up & 200 more on race morning. Total registrations were 683 breaking our previous mark of 619.  Half entries were 429 breaking our record of 390.  That's fantastic but the even better news was that I only made 2 minor errors whe entering them all in the computer Bettering my previous record of 4 errors.  

  The race went off under sunny skies & 24F, easily the best race conditions in 5 years. Between the 2 races 625 runners crossed the finishline. My 10 course volunteers & 8 packet pick up & registration volunteers did an outstanding job.  DW coordinated the finishline w/ 3 helpers, 9 volunteers at the 3 water stops,  leaving me and 2 others to respond to the unexpected.  Everything went off with no problems & I heard no complaints,  other than the usual ones about all the hills.  Approx. $5,000 will be placed into our scholarship foundation.

Thanks

Hi Sarge,

Great job on the race, and for hanging in during the nasty weather leading up to your race. I'll bet there were a few nervous days before the weather started to clear! Congrats on the two new registration records, and also the new low number of input errors. I assume you are inputting the manual entries that come in before race day - it does get tedious, and some people's writing is not as clear as you'd like, so errors can happen pretty easily. Some races around here only have online registration (and no race-day sign-ups) to avoid the hassles and problems with manual inputs.

It sounds like you have a great volunteer crew, and that makes a world of difference too. Of course, it still all falls on your shoulders, so I hope you are very pleased with what you accomplished with your races this year!

Jay

Great job!  The increasing number of runners is evidence of your good work!  Thanks for sharing with us!