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Cherry Blossom 10 miler
(Washington, D.C.)
Author: klewlis
Date: 2007-05-07
This race is held during Washington's annual Cherry Blossom Festival. Unfortunately they can never guarantee that the trees will be in full bloom on the right days, but this year we lucked out... they were just coming into bloom, and the city was gorgeous! In addition to the cherry trees there were a lot of other fruit trees (and magnolias too) that were in bloom, making for a lot of really beautiful scenery and pictures.
The race sells out right away in December, so we registered on the day registration opened.
The organization was good; they kept us up-to-date through regular emails, and also mailed the information to all of the participants. There was also a race expo where we found a couple of good deals. Package pick-up was easy and well-run, especially considering the size of the race (10,000 runners!).
On race day we did not want to deal with the Metro or parking, so we decided to take a cab down to the start. After the race, we took a shuttle to the Metro--however, we had to walk so far to get to the shuttle, it would have been faster just to walk directly to the nearest Metro station! That was possibly our only complaint out of the entire event.
The race itself is really great--it runs past some of the monuments and famous buildings in DC, crosses the river and back, and then proceeds north, following the rock creek ravine. The entire race was beautiful, with plenty to look at. The course is flat and fast. The volunteers were great, and there were lots of water stations. This race was unique for me in that it was fairly crowded the entire way--I am used to having some alone time in most races, but since it has such a huge field for a relatively short race, there were always people around us. This became fun in the last two miles when I decided to pick up the pace--I was passing dozens of people at a time!
At the end everyone got a commemorative key-chain--very nice.
I wasn't very happy with the photography, but understand that it would be hard to get good pictures of individuals when it is so crowded.
I definitely recommend this race to anyone who has the opportunity to run it. The scenery in DC utterly gorgeous, and of course there is lots to do during the rest of your visit! I hope to do this one again... and may even make it an annual event!
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