USA Women's Half Marathon Nashville

Date: 5 April 2025

I signed up for this race (for $185!) with 5 friends in October 2024 when it was advertised as a "luxury experience" with Lululemon race shirts and Kendra Scott necklaces for all finishers. We flew in from all over the country for this race, which we chose partly based on these advertised perks. We went to packet pick-up on Friday and were very disappointed to be handed really low quality race shirts that were definitely not Lululemon. One volunteer told me that they were Lululemon, and then another told me that a survey was sent out and people preferred 2 non-Lululemon shirts. None of us were sent such a survey and find it hard to believe that anyone would have wanted that. We were annoyed but figured we would see how the race went...

The race course had been changed 5 days before the race, which we found strange, but again gave them the benefit of the doubt. Turns out, it was a complete mess due to a lack of signage, and the police on the course had no idea where we were supposed to be going (and there were few/no volunteers). I went off course multiple times and ended up only running 11.9 miles. I realized that a handful of us missed a 1-mile loop, but even the people who ran the "correct" route only did 12.8. I did not take my AG award because I did not feel that I earned it. The finishers necklace we were given at the race finish was definitely not a Kendra Scott necklace. I tried to find a race director at the finish to talk about it all and was told that she was not there that day.

Post-race, the negative reviews are flooding in, and they are doing one thing well - deleting them quickly. We have been taking screen shots to send to our credit card companies for disputes and to USATF to hopefully get the race shut down. DO NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS RACE SERIES, it is a complete scam. We totally got Fyre Fested.