I ran the Sweltering Sangria Half Marathon this morning in Cobden, Illinois and the race is aptly named; Sweltering.
It was overcast for most of the race, with the temp at start 75 degreees and ended with it at 80 degrees with 79% humidity. 🥵
This was a smaller race which started and ended at StarView Vineyards which is beautiful and has a variety of food and wine/beer offerings to include wine slushies.
So the course in a nutshell is filled with hills and more hills. Mostly road but there is a longer section of rock gravel.
RTS runs the race and overall it was well done.
Now that being said, I was disappointed with the placement of water stops. The first water stop wasn’t until just before mile 6 with water and Gummi worms but the guy there said they ran late and then set up. Well great and good but I was close to the back of the pack so what good did setting it up do. The 2nd half of course they did better as the next one was close to mile 8, then 1 at mile 10, then another close to mile 12. The stop at mile 8 had water, pickle juice shots and Guu. Some stops had Gatorade and water and the last stop had pretzel chips as well.
The National Guard was at the finish line with cold towels so that was a nice touch and much appreciated as the sun came out in full force by the time I reached the finish line.
The snacks post race were, in my opinion, lacking unless I missed another area.
As I said earlier, overall, a good race experience.
