* From: michael j downey
* Event: run/ride rollercoaster 5k- six flags new england
* Date: 2015-09-06
* Event Details
parking was in there main lots across the street from the park and we got FREE parking ( normally $25.00 park visitors ) and from the lot it was about a .5 mile walk to the area where race village was set up. Once you got there the experience went down hill REAL fast. They did offer a pre race pick up on Saturday but for a lot of people its just far out of the way for it to be worth wile. when you got there there was no real direction and there were two lines one for a-m and n-z BUT for some strange reason n-z was the left lane and a-m was the right lane. In America we are used to the standard of going left to right with left being the low end of # or beginning of the alphabet not the opposite. so after you figured out that mess you then had to get in a second line and go down a assembly line where you got your bib and plastic bag for bag check then next station you got either one or two shirts depending on if you did both parts of the event and then you got to bag check that was the biggest cluster fuck i have ever seen. At first it did not even look like it was staffed and that you just kinda there your bag in a pile but there were two volunteers doing a whole lot of nothing and this just led to a giant mess later on. Also due to the very slow and poorly run registration station and people not getting through quick, we headed up to the start line about 10 mins before the start and there was still a line of 50 or so people trying to check in still. this caused them to push back the start about 15 mins and there were still people who missed the start and started 5-10 mins after the gun.
Post race when i went to bag check is when i saw a major issue. the two girls using bag check had ZERO clue what they were doing and had no check and balance system to ensure people were taking the right bags. they mistakenly gave my bag to someone else even though the numbers were on them all and very easily readable. when we were trying to inform them of the missing bag it seemed that there English skills were minimal at best and were unable to say anything much more than numbers. when we asked them to get a staff member so we can report this and get this resolved they just dumb look on there face like i was from a different planet and we ended up having to find staff members our self to get things resolved. the first mistake was how poorly organized the bag check was and not having a proper check and balance system to ensure people get the right bags and then putting people who are non communicative there was another bad move, they would have been better used out on course pointing direction.
* Race Details
the course it self was well marked but there was some confusion because the first few mile markers were ment for the 10k people on there second lap. also water stops were not really out there. the first stop was about 100 yards in ment for the 10k people beginning lap 2 and the only water stop for the 5k was at about a mile and half in. most of the course took place in the parking lot and neighborhood next to the park and re entered the park on the south side in the employee entrance and ran under a few coasters and then re entered the park by bizarro and then worked your way up to main street of the park and did a quick switch back for a final sprint down the main road of the park to the finish line to get for first medal. We finished about 8:30ish and waited till the last people crossed the line at around 9:30 we choose to leave the park and clean up and change in the car.
we came back into the park at 10 with everyone else and since we had a game plan of the coasters we needed to hit to get our 5k ride done as soon as we could we made a B line to Bizarro since that was the longest coaster in the park and goal was 3 rides of that and then any other coaster would get the 5k. we were given a bracelet that listed all the coasters and the staff would punch a hole in it for each ride. this is where i think better organization could have helped because of this the coasters were running at a slower pace because one of the 2 staff safety check members were tied up punching bracelets and taking it longer to do pre ride checks, i think it would make things better if the race people just had a staff member at the exit of each coaster and did the punches and not the six flags people. once you hit the 5k distance you went up to the race people they logged your distances and awarded you your second medal.
overall this was a very fun event because you got to spend a bunch of time with your friends and teammates for the day. i would do this event again next year but a few things.
first – have someone pre pick up my packet, not use bag check and maybe i would get a flash pass because the firs two hours the park was not bad but by about 1pm the attendance and wait times exploded .
* Rating
Average
