Parking

Parking has become a big issue at the Bull Run Run. Our parking volunteers will work hard to make parking easier for you. We hope you will help us.

BRR Parking Sucks! Parking is limited and difficult at BRR. The shortest possible walk from the parking lot to the start is ¼ mile and many will have to walk up to ½ mile. The lot is grass (with some mud, depending on the weather) and not flat. There is barely room for all the runners, let alone the crews and volunteers.

We could fix parking easily by significantly reducing the number of runners. We don't want to do that. We do want everyone to help us address the parking problem.

What You Can Do to Help: Here is how you can help us:

• Carpool - It will greatly help if you carpool. To encourage carpooling, those with two or more registered runners in their car will be allowed to park inside the Hemlock gate. A carpooler should be able to park as close as 30 yards from the start and no further than 100 yards. The carpool lot could fill up. If it does, you will have to park in the regular lot. Come early.
• Get Dropped Off - If you are local or if your crew wants to go have a real breakfast, it would help a lot if you are dropped off by someone who leaves with the car.
• Arrive Early - It takes time to get everyone parked. Cars have to wait in line. We are very sorry for this. Please arrive early! Anytime after 4 a.m. The pre-start socializing can be the high point of the day!
• Be Patient and Polite - We will have a large crew of volunteer parking attendants. Please be polite to them. Be patient. After you get parked, you won't see a car for 50 miles. (See above, arrive early.)
• Park Close Together - Our parking attendants will ask you to park close to your neighbor. This is inconvenient, we know. But we need to get everyone in! Please help.
• Bring the Right Car - If you have a choice of car, bring one that will do well on mud. Do not, however, bring a large car if you can avoid it. Please leave campers, big trucks, etc. at home.
• Park Legally! - See below for important rules. Please park correctly.

Crew Parking: Our goal is to accomdate your crew at the event. But we can't promise that there will be a place to park for all the crews at all times.

• Crews may park at the start assuming that they brought a runner. To put it another way, no car can park at the start without a runner inside.
• It would help for crews to drop their runner off at the start and go somewhere else. This would also prevent the crew from getting blocked in after the start.
• Crews may park at Hemlock to meet their runner at the aid station (16.6 miles). They should use the main lot where the runners are parked.
• Crews may park at Hemlock to meet their runners at the finish. Since our most congested time will be from about noon to mid-afternoon, please don't come back to Hemlock before your runner is due to finish. The later you can come, the more likely you will find a place to park. (Crews for mid to back-of-the-pack runners should have no problem finding a place to park at Hemlock. This is one of those few situations where it is good to be slow!)
• There may be times during the day when you cannot park at Hemlock. If you can't park, you can't park. Please come back later. We hope that this problem won't happen, and it should only happen for the crews of the fast runners; but if there is no place to park, that is not an excuse to park illegally.

DON'T! Please abide by these rules. Illegally parked cars may be towed.

• Don't park at the Winery - As you approach Hemlock, there is a winery on the left side of the road. Do not park there. Do not park anywhere on the left side of the road.
• Do not Park ANYWHERE on Yates Ford Road - You approach Hemlock on Yates Ford Road. It is the last mile or so of you trip. Do not park on this road. Especially don't park on the left side of this road. (There are places to park on the right side of this road. On Saturday, we must leave those spaces for turning around and for hikers who are using the trail.)
• Do Not Block Anything - Don't park in front of gates, roads, other cars, etc.

Friday Parking: The Saturday parking lots will likely be closed on Friday. Please watch for signs or monitors for correct parking on Friday.

Thank you for your cooperation. Happy trails!

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