Registration is now open for the 14th annual Half Marathon Unplugged presented by Switchback Brewing. Mark your calendar for Saturday April 11, 2020, click the registration link, make that commitment to yourself that 2020 is your biggest year of training and racing yet and that all your pr’s better watch out because here you come!
On the operations side, after 8 years with start waves at both 9am and 11am, we’re going back to a single start wave, and that will be at 9:00am. A few reasons that drove the decision:
- Wave 2 has not sold out for a couple years, although overall registration numbers for this race remain strong. Even after we sell out Wave 1, we get a lot of emails and calls from runners who want to run in Wave 1.
- The City of Burlington widened the bikepath a couple years ago by over a foot, plus added stable gravel shoulders. The additional width available for runners will reduce the concerns we had of course crowding.
- When we last had a single start wave we timed this race manually. In the ensuing years we’ve moved to chip timing, which greatly increases the ability to handle higher finish line densities.
- Analysis of our post-race operations has concluded that the space and personnel available can easily handle both waves of runners. Switchback’s grounds are a lot bigger than the space we used to use at 208 Flynn Ave. We do expect longer lines for food and beer but we’re working on expanding the options.
- More finishers = bigger party = more fun!!
- Securing enough volunteers is always a challenge at this race, and a lot of that is because we switch out most of our Course Monitors for each wave. 1 wave = half the Course Monitors needed.
Otherwise, everything you love about Unplugged returns. Same flat and fast course. Same RunVermont vibe. Bring your friends, join the party on April 11th.