Harrison Seitz's Staging Area

Race organized by the Penn Law School. Simple 5K in the Penn Park, super cheap ($10), beautiful April morning. Maybe 50-75 runners. There were not enough cones, so evidently a bunch of us (including me) took a wrong turn and ended up doing almost 3.5 miles. However, I tracked this race on Strava and I hit 3.1 miles at 20:47, a new personal record by about 1 minute 13 seconds. My actual time on the website is like 24:02 lol. Glad that it was a super low stakes 5k that I took a wrong turn on, and not a marathon.

Chevron is a gas station company. In Mandarin Chinese, to encourage someone, you say “加油!!” (jiā yóu). It literally means “add oil”. I love dad jokes, so I told several Chinese runners and fans that this was the perfect race to add oil because it was the *Chevron* Houston Marathon. Soooo many rolled eyes and giggles.

The pre-race and post-race expo are at the George Brown Convention Center in downtown. You receive your bib in one smaller room (??) before proceeding to a larger room to get a towel and small free merch. Dozens of vendors. But where’s the free shirt? No, not a cotton one; give me something to wear on race day! There was a line of 100 people for a cotton T-shirt that was pressed on the spot with Houston Marathon logos. But no athletic tee. Bummer. I was told I would receive a finisher shirt after the race.

I stayed in the BPoshtels Houston hostel 3 miles north of town. $31/night, and a 9 minute walk from the Red Line light rail that takes you downtown. If you do this, board the light rail before 6am. You will definitely need the spare time when you get downtown. The neon sign outside actually says “Heights Hotel”; don’t be fooled. It’s a converted motel, free breakfast, free pool, indoor bar, patio, and 24 hour reception. They had both Saturday NFL playoff games on TV in there, including a resounding victory by the hometown Texans. However, I *couldn’t* sleep. Maybe the single quilt and no bedsheets weren’t quite enough. Maybe I was too nervous. But I got one <5 minute taste of sleep at 3am and that was it. However, I wired myself up at 4am and ended up running just fine. Not my first sleepless night before a marathon :< and surprisingly, as a 27 year old it doesn't hurt my performance too much.

Race morning in the Convention Center is chaos, with dozens of groups of people hanging out in packs and stretching on the floor. It’s like a postgame stadium mixed with Sunday church after service. Luckily, the marathon bag drop is short and efficient, but then you have to exit the center through a small exit, trapped in a stream of people. I was in the ‘A’ corral, and they said it closes at 6:45, 16 minutes before race start. Thankfully, I got in there about 6:47, and I wasn’t the only one a few minutes late. They’re not overly strict about that.

The race starts/ends in downtown. It was one of the flattest courses I’ve run. There are both mile and km markers, and clocks every 10km. We run over a highway bridge at mile 3, through a nice treed neighborhood from miles 5-8, and a humorous priest was dipping a branch in a cup of water and sprinkling holy water on willing runners at mile 8. Bless up, y’all! We run past Rice University at mile 9, and enter an outskirts suburb at mile 12. Miles 14-16 have a lovely SoCal vibe as you run up Post Oak Boulevard, which is 5 miles west of downtown but has skyscrapers, new roads, and tree-lined medians. 17-20 are on some 40 mph roads past neighborhoods.

Save your energy for mile 20, though. The last 6 miles are east, straight into the sun. Even though the weather was *perfect* (45-50 degrees all morning), and it was January, Houston sun doesn’t mess around. You can feel how powerful that sun is. I survived it because it was unusually cold today; but it could cause heat stroke and kill someone if the high is 70-75 degrees.

Miles 20-23 are through Memorial Park. We run through some cool tunnels. The smartest DJ ever put his booth inside one tunnel, allowing the sound to echo and reverberate. It’s a transcendental experience when you’re 21 miles in and the DJ plays “Staying Alive”, and the entire song washes you clean and scrubs every thought out of your head. Absolute chills. One of my favorite memories at any marathon, ever.

Miles 23-25 are on the outskirts of town with more shade than 20-23, and the only small hills on the whole course. You enter downtown at 25, and it’s a mad dash to the end.

Frustrating post-race production 🙁 the finishers are forced to stand in place and herded like sheep through a small gate, where 3-4 volunteers hand medals to hundreds of finishers. No place to sit down or sneak out. We get inside the convention center and are herded AGAIN through a fenced path. How do marathon organizers not understand that the only thing finishers want to do is collapse on the ground? We finish right next to the Discovery Green, a large park square. Why not remove all the fences and let runners limp over there to catch their breath and grab a medal, then let them go inside the convention center for optional food/shirt/gear? Bottlenecks should be public enemy #1 for organizers, especially right after the finish. (Looking at you, Kyoto Marathon }: ) Probably 15-20 minutes before I could sit down at all. Thankfully, post-race gear reclamation and finisher shirt pickup were both very fast. It looked like a great postrace party with lots of free food indoors, and a nice outdoor party on the Discovery Green; sadly I had to leave to catch a flight.

Disappointed by the Houston vibes and lack of city pride. I know this is SE Texas, not the desert, but there is no cowboy culture here. I only saw 2 cowboy hats all weekend, no boots, no horses, not much pride in local BBQ. No one says “howdy” or “y’all” here. (At least the Mexican food slaps.) Virtually no downtown traffic, which feels lonely actually. And since there’s not much foot traffic, the homeless population will bother you if you do dare to walk around (5 people yelled at me in the first 4 hours I spent downtown). Never feels like a classic Texas city, just a souped-up version of any other southeast metro like Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta, or Memphis; and *infinitely* more sprawling. Oh my gosh. Don’t get me started on that sprawl.

My 27th marathon, but the first I’ve ever run in my city of residence at the time. The expo is in Center City, and it’s probably a good idea for out-of-towners to take public transit there, since Center City parking is not great. This was my largest marathon to date, with about 13,000 marathoners and triple that for half marathoners. Long lines at the expo on Friday afternoon. I was disappointed that so many of the expo vendors had a purely business motive (“sign up for our service!!”) and there weren’t more free samples.

The half-marathoners run the day before, which keeps the marathon crowds manageable. I had never run a marathon with a pre-race security checkpoint before. Arrive at least 30-40 minutes before start time, because the checkpoint lines are as long as a baseball game.

We were set off in waves, separated by about 90 seconds. We start on Ben Franklin Parkway, next to the Museum of Art, and run east to the Delaware River, then west across Center City again. The first six miles are thronged with fans, and it’s awesome. At mile 7, we cross the Wissahickon River into University City, where college kids from UPenn and Drexel cheer for two miles. Miles 9-12 are lonely with some hills, saved by a score of fans at mile 13.

Save your mental strength for miles 16-24. A four-mile out-and-back up the east bank of the Wissahickon River, with almost no turns. It’s 10 am by now, so the sun beats down. From miles 19-21, we enter the northwest Philly neighborhood of Manayunk, with some tough hills. Thankfully, miles 23-26 are mostly downhill, and I dragged my exhausted legs to the finish line next to the Museum of Art.

More fans than I had ever seen before, which is great. The fall leaves on the east side of the Wissahickon River are pretty, but I wish we could change the four-mile out and back. A security checkpoint with a metal detector is understandable for spectators, but *why* do we need to do it on runners? It created such a massive choke point into the race corrals, and I’m sure it made some runners late and unhappy.

Expo was at the Baltimore convention center in the middle of downtown. Difficult to find cheap parking if driving; only $15 parking garages are around. I put my hazards on and left my car on the curb while I dashed through the expo and picked up my bib + shirt in record time (under 3 minutes??) because I got there 6 minutes before closing. Would not recommend doing that.

I had ordered my packet to be mailed to me, and it never came. $25 down the drain. So I had to speed from Philly to Baltimore after work to get there before Friday 8pm.

Few complaints about the race itself, though. The race starts next to Camden Yards, the Orioles baseball stadium. The first 3 miles were a gradual uphill climb, and apparently mile 3 is the highest point on the course. We run into the Baltimore Zoo for two miles, then reenter the downtown around mile 7. We run past the harbor from miles 10-14, and run near a lake from miles 19-20. The last few miles are mostly through neighborhoods, before finishing near the harbor again.

The back half had almost as many fans as the front half, which is a rarity. A few water stands around mile 7-11 could have used more volunteers. It was raining most of the race, including a downpour around mile 11, and my mental health was poor, so I didn’t give my best effort out there.

I’m deducting one point for the race producers who decided to funnel the half marathoners back into the marathon pack around mile 15-16. Mass confusion ensued. Otherwise, it was a pretty decent mid-size city race.

You’re playing with fire by signing up for a road race held in late April/May. I don’t know what child of the devil thought a April 23 Nashville marathon is a good idea, but once upon a time, a northern state marathon still felt safe, even in May or June.

Then the 2020s brought global warming. The sun came out in full force yesterday morning in Rhode Island and made everyone miserable. Heard a lot of complaints and defeated wails, and saw so many once-proud runners slow to a walk.

Expo was pretty small and crowded, inside a two-story building downtown. Got a pullover hoodie, my bib, and no other swag. But at least it was downtown. Race started at 7:30 am, which was poor planning because the sun was up for at least an hour beforehand.

Not a cloud in the sky! And the first seven miles were nonstop hills on asphalt! The roads were 30 years old, so the asphalt was faded gray instead of fresh black, which helped a lot. The first 2-3 miles were a decent downtown river jaunt on brick paths by cute shops, but most of the course after that was a real armpit. Running across (and under) ugly auto bridges, then on boring two-lane roads, avoiding road work. From miles 5-10 we were rewarded by having to run on the side of a two-lane road, only wide enough for two runners, as cars whooshed past. At least we got some downhills starting at mile 8, and we finally got to run in a park at mile 10.

The highlight of the race was around mile 13, when we ran past a cute country club on the left and river marshland on the right. Aside from the downtown start/finish, it was the only cute part in an ugly, lonely course. The volunteers did all they could to help the runners, even dumping pitchers of water all over hot joggers. If only it was partly cloudy or a few degrees cooler, it would have been okay. But when the May sun is beating down and it’s 70 degrees, you’re in for a rough ride.

Postrace was nice, as we relaxed on the lawn in front of the capitol (where we started). Plenty of warm water bottles, Gatorade Fit, Fruit Gushers, and a free beer ticket.

This race was really “mid”. I wish we ran through more parks or cute neighborhoods. I wrote in an earlier review that every marathon runs through plenty of nice neighborhoods, but I don’t recall many neighborhoods in this run. Isn’t there some kind of picturesque shaded riverside trail we could go on?

UPDATE: I heard later that a 27-year-old runner collapsed and died of heat stroke on mile 12 of the half marathon. My deepest condolences to him and his family. As I said before, the sun, May, and black tar roads are no joke in long-distance running. Please stay safe, runners.

Basic Atlanta sports pun there. Charlotte, NC native here, and I had never been to Atlanta before, but I was pleasantly surprised at how upbeat and growing the city is, as one of the economic/cultural hubs of the southeast. So many fun things to do around town. The Coca Cola Museum, National Civil Rights Museum, College Football Hall of Fame, Georgia Aquarium (the largest in USA!) and CNN headquarters are all within a stone’s throw of Centennial Olympic Park.

Packet pickup was at the Georgia Aquarium. The swag bag was minimal and perhaps they should have given out short-sleeved shirts, but it was awesome to walk in and see beluga whales swimming around in tanks in the walls and watching people. It was a good venue if you’re on foot, but heaven help you if you’re trying to drive there. The Aquarium is right downtown and not only was parking $30, but it was a gridlock at 1pm Saturday; my friends’ vehicle didn’t move for 15 minutes straight. Maybe consider having the expo in the outskirts in the future?

The race started/ended at Centennial Olympic Park. Man, the course was awesome. It took us down so many important/cool streets in Atlanta, such as the MLK Memorial, the Capitol, past the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, through Georgia Tech/Georgia State/Clark Atlanta University/Morehouse. We even got photos with the 1996 Olympic Rings in the background, how cool is that?!

Too bad the course was also endlessly hilly. Running a marathon for the third weekend in a row, my legs really gave out by about 12 miles in and only a stupid Little Debbie Honey Bun that I bought the night before kept me from collapsing. But the fans were some of the best I have ever encountered! So much cheering and positivity and a really fun atmosphere. My goal was 4 hours and I limped in with 3 minutes to spare.

I wish they gave out cold water at the finish line, though. Lukewarm water bottles ain’t great after 4 hours of running *_*

Some cities will never have optimal marathon weather, even if you schedule the race at midnight in wintertime. One of these is Ho Chi Minh City. The temperature at midnight race day was 81 F with 80% humidity, and by 5 am it was 77 F with 90% humidity.

This was the first edition of the Ho Chi Minh City race. It was sponsored by VnExpress, which is the top newspaper/news website in Vietnam. I think VnExpress was rolling out a series of marathons and road races in all the major cities across Vietnam, and HCMC was just one stop. For a first-time race in a developing country at midnight, the production was actually top notch. Registration was pretty cheap, like $70 (but don’t forget you will also need a visa to enter Vietnam if you’re American). The expo was outdoor, at a soccer stadium a mile or two north of District 1, and there are plenty of maps and photo ops and free Heineken 0.0 cans there. The expo itself felt like a party scene: people laughing and chatting and taking pictures, kids playing Kinect video games, I think even the local news station was there. I walked around the track and found some middle aged Vietnamese men kicking a soccer ball around, and I joined their game even though we couldn’t speak a word of each other’s language. It was beautiful.

Race Night, we started at a park near District 1. They flew drones over the whole crowd several times before the start of the race to capture the vibe. Race started at midnight. We passed the very scenic Nguyen Hue at 3K–it’s a fabulous walking street in downtown that has old French architecture. However, by 5 or 6K, I started to realize the heat was no joke. We ran next to the river for about 10K on a down and back, and luckily the river created a slight breeze. Aid stations were every 2K and they had an energy drink called ReVive that tasted like salt water, along with regular water cups (down the stretch, almost every runner neglected the ReVive in favor of real water. I guess even the Vietnamese hated it.)

There were a few small stretches near the middle of the course where we ran in darkness for 500m or so, but the majority of the race was under yellowish street lights. I think we crossed the river four times and did a lot of running on closed-down highways on the eastern suburbs of HCMC. We finished at a park on the northeastern corner of the city, next to the zoo. There, they offered us several treats including ramen and beer and green tea. Elevation change wasn’t bad and the roads were nice and wide. Traffic pollution was a slight problem for the first hour, but traffic died down by 1:30am.

I am just pleasantly surprised by how *fun* the atmosphere was, even at midnight. Thanks so much to all the volunteers who stayed up all night to hand out water to the runners, and thanks to all the fans who shouted “Golek!” or something like that at me. Maybe it means “keep running!”, I don’t know.

A silent but deadly smell seeps through downtown Manchester on warm, windy days. Possibly from all the homeless people. It smells like trash, death, and poop had a baby. You’ll be walking down the street and then a puff of wind blows in your face and BAM! there goes your appetite. Welcome to Manchester.

…anyway…

If you fly into Boston, like me, Manchester is a 70 minute Greyhound bus ride away. It’s not only the biggest city in New Hampshire, but the best marathon in NH for budget travelers, being the only one reachable by bus from Boston. I didn’t go to the expo since it was in a running store 3 miles outside of town, and the shirts and bibs were available on race day anyway. A nice late starting race (8:50 am) gave me plenty of time to wake up in the morning.

The marathon had about 925 feet of elevation change. The first half was super hilly. Downtown Manchester is on the east side of the Merrimack River. We start and finish downtown, but we cross the river immediately and run 5 miles on a greenway before coming back over and running miles 6-13 in East side neighborhoods. At mile 15 you cross the river a second time and run an out and back for 5 miles in each direction through forests on a dirt-gravel path. This was miserable when it started raining. I couldn’t believe how slow I was on miles 16-20, and blamed it on the loose gravel.

…and then, we hit the turnaround at mile 20, and realized we had been running uphill for FOUR miles straight. And now it was downhill! I was gassed, but those were the easiest miles 20-24 I have ever run. We cross the Merrimack for the fourth time at mile 24 and finish downtown near Veterans Park, in the pouring rain. The crowds were great for a rainy day in a town of 40k. Production was smooth for a smaller race, although the back half was lonely as usual. Prepare for a lot of hills if you run this one, but just know that if you can make it to mile 20, “it’s all downhill from here”.

(“The S is silent” is an unofficial Des Moines motto.)
Des Moines was a great host city in every aspect. The race expo was in the Iowa Events Center, and we got some great swag including a free Chick fil A sandwich and cowbells.

Race day was near perfect weather: 42 degrees at start, 52 at finish, cloudy most of the way. My friend from Des Moines told me that the course hit “pretty much everything to see in this town”. We started and ended downtown, ran across the Des Moines River, ran past Drake University and even did a lap on their track, and ran through a few parks including Gray’s Lake Park. The crowd support was awesome; we were constantly cheered on. The aid stations were the most frequent I have seen in 15 marathons. There were actually TOO many of them: one every mile or even less. I had to refuse water at half of them bc I was too full! 3 Gatorade gel stations: mile 9, 15, 20.

A big thank you to the bike guy who gave me a coke at mile 23. Coke is the BEST thing when you’re hitting the wall at the end of a marathon, but this is only the second marathon of 15 where I saw coke available. I wish every marathon had cola in the last 10K, though! It gives you miraculous energy.

The postrace party also rocked. I got not one but TWO drink tickets and two food tickets. DSM (Des Moines) may not lure you in with tourist attractions, but it is certainly a superb midsize Midwestern marathon. Highly recommend this race for Iowa.

Race expo, start, and finish were all at the Fargodome, home to the local college football team (North Dakota State). Plenty of free parking for every event, no need to worry. It’s a hype atmosphere inside, waiting to start, and they sing both the Canadian and American national anthems.

The course changed for 2022 because of heavy flooding. IDK what it was in previous years, but for 2022 this means a LOT of neighborhoods. It’s hard to think of what else there even is on the course besides neighborhoods. We crossed into neighboring Moorhead, MN around mile 11, ran past their downtown, and onto two beautiful college campuses around mile 15 (Concordia-Moorhead and MSU-Moorhead). We come back to North Dakota around mile 18 and run through the pretty downtown at mile 23 before finishing inside the Fargodome. Shoutout to the guy at mile 21 with the sign that said, “Feeling tired? There’s a Taco Bell just ahead that will give you the runs!” That sign made my day.

Great crowd support for a small state like this–it rivals the best I’ve seen in Maine and Indiana. Cheap to register (~$85), free photos, great production, plenty of pacers. A perfect race to run if you are (A) a 50-stater, (B) trying to qualify for Boston, or (C) a local. If you aren’t one of those three, WTF are you even doing in Fargo?

Common marathoner knowledge: big city marathons try much harder on the first half of a marathon course to impress half marathoners, and then the quality dips for the last 13 miles. This was the most egregious case yet!

Packet pickup was at the Kentucky International Convention Center, a really nice, shiny building downtown. The expo was great (even featuring some sports games!) The temperature for this race was borderline too hot, but the clouds kept it from being miserable. Surprisingly, not many hills. The first half of the course is *amazing* for a city this size. We start downtown, and run past the Louisville Slugger Museum, the University of Louisville, several nice neighborhoods, and even into Churchill Downs at mile 8, before finishing next to the Louisville women’s pro soccer stadium. All the city landmarks. Great crowd support and water stations. If I did the half, this would get 5 stars.

For the back half, we run onto a bridge and over the river into Indiana, where we do a 6 mile out and back on some greenways on the Indiana side. People said Louisville outsourced the second half to Indiana because they didn’t have enough police to secure enough intersections in Louisville.

Running on lonely greenways isn’t the worst, but I was really disappointed by the aid stations in Indiana. Almost all aid stations were only handing out WARM water bottles, no gatorade. In the 75 F heat, the warm water made me gag, and almost every runner took two sips of a bottle and threw it out, leading to massive water bottle waste. You’d think paper cups would have been cheaper and almost as easy. Some 7 year old kid finally saved me with an ice cold Gatorade around mile 23, and I almost cried, I was so sick of warm water bottles. Even at the finish line, there wasn’t a single person who could give me a cold cup of water! Just Powerade and warm water bottles.

Official parking is at the Lousville soccer stadium and is $10. We parked for free in a park parking lot northeast of the stadium on River Road, a mile away. Take your chances if you want.

Hills to watch out for:
-right at mile 14, running onto the bridge from Ky-Indiana, is a steep incline.
-just before mile 21 is a long uphill. You will run past this at mile 18, so you will be warned.
-at mile 24, getting back onto the bridge to run back into Louisville.

Perfect day for running in St. Louis, low 60s, sunny, mild wind. The start line (Forest Park) is about 5 miles west of the finish line (on the north side of downtown). There is a pre-race shuttle from downtown to Forest Park, or postrace vice versa. Parking in Forest Park is free, but they have most entrances blocked just before the race starts, so check the marathon website for a map of which park entrances are open.

The first half of the course takes you through some average-looking neighborhoods and barren city streets west of town, ending near the north side of downtown. If it is a sunny day, BRING SUNGLASSES, y’all. You will be running eastward into the sun for 2 hours straight. Luckily I had mine. The second half of the course is an out-and-back, 6.5 miles north along the Mississippi river banks. I clocked in at about 3:40, but some guy dressed in a Left Shark costume, blaring Katy Perry songs from a speaker, got 3:21. Hats off to him.

Pretty good crowd support. I was a little disappointed with the course, as it shied away from downtown and missed the landmarks, like WUSTL, the Arch, and the cool downtown streets.

I am from central Illinois. I train on pancake-flat roads. The Route 66 Marathon course is almost constant hills. I would say an average of 1 to 1.5 uphill/downhill combos every mile. If you are afraid of hills, I can confirm that an entire marathon of them will wreck your legs. But here is some good running and good life advice: “For every uphill, there is a downhill”. I compared my mile splits for hilly miles to flat miles, and the difference was only about 15 seconds. Trust your training, and know that you can make up much of the time you lost uphill, on the downhill.

The race starts with confetti cannons, which is cool. It is a good tour of Tulsa, as we hit the Philbrook Art Museum, run past the Gathering Place park, and through downtown a couple times to see all the Art Deco skyscrapers and the Mediterranean-style architecture all over the city. There are clocks at every mile, which is a nice touch. We ran onto the University of Tulsa at mile 19, which was also beautiful. Kudos to the race organizers for showing us all the best this city has to offer.

Four stands throughout the course offered shots of Fireball whiskey. Including one after just 1.5 miles.

The least swag I’ve ever gotten at a marathon. Just a quarter zip long sleeve shirt, some knit gloves, a few coupons, and a pack of tissues (?)

I traveled from central Illinois for this race. Thanks to covid, we weren’t able to run into Windsor, Ontario like all the other years. I kept hearing how much we were missing out on this year.
We started and ended downtown, which was cool to run down streets with 30-story buildings. We ran up the northwest corridor of neighborhoods for the first half, went downtown at 13 miles to drop the half marathoners off, and then ran up the northeast side for the back end. Some marathoners say it’s tough mentally to run past the half marathon finish line. If this is you, prepare yourself mentally for that.
Belle Isle was both the highlight and lowlight of the race for me.
We ran onto it from miles 19-22, and while it was very pretty, you’d better prepare for 20-mph winds and goose droppings everywhere.
There were about 2000 marathoners this year, down from 4000+ a few years ago. Production and fan support were great, and the roar of the crowd echoing off the skyscrapers down the home stretch gave me chills, so it was a solid Michigan race.

*I heard “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen played on loudspeakers FOUR times.
*I’ve run past tables offering beer at races before, but here, one table (mile 15?) offered Bloody Marys, and some dude at mile 24 was even handing out shots of Fireball to runners. Y’all crazy, Detroit.

I traveled from central Illinois to run this race.

-Race expo had tons of goodies. Stock up on all the free swag and coupons you want.
-The start line is at the UW-Fox Cities campus, but don’t expect to be able to just drive up to the same building you picked up your packet at. If the parking lots are full, people will park at whatever businesses they want, a half mile down the road from the start line (Midway Road in Menasha). And I guess that was allowable. I parked at some auto repair shop, and nobody towed me away or complained.
-It was warmer than I had hoped. It got up to 79 degrees by the end of my marathon, probably a freak occurrence for mid-Sept in central Wisconsin. The entire rest of this week has been highs of 64-65.
-The best thing about this marathon is that they put your name on the bib, and EVERYONE cheers you on by name! I probably heard total stranger spectators cheer me on by name over a hundred times this race!
-Watch out for the straight stretch of road from miles 18-22. I am a runner who loves turns every half-mile or so. And I hate running on concrete roads in the 75 degree sun. I also broke my sunglasses at mile 15. There was ~4 miles of straight concrete road between 18-22, zero shade, that I really struggled with.
-There was a bridge over 3/4 mile of inlet from Lake Winnebago just before mile 23. Maybe the prettiest part of the race.
-Gu was provided at miles 14 and 21. Water and Gatorade roughly every mile.
-It was nice finishing in downtown Neenah, and there were tons of small snacks to pick up post race!
-Since the finish was 5 miles from the start, you have to take a bus back to the start. My uncle picked me up, so I can’t speak to how good the bus was.
-May not have been as scenic as Milwaukee Lakefront or Madison supposedly are, but if you’re a 50 stater like me, consider this one because there aren’t too many other good mid-September races out there (and the Fox Cities are pretty cool too).

Thanks Fox Cities!

*note: at mile 22, you cross two bridges. One is short, like 500 feet, and then suddenly there was a fork in the road and no cones or volunteers to tell you which way to go. I yelled for help, and someone suggested the correct way to go was right, across another bridge for 3/4 mile. Thank goodness he was correct. Fox Cities, if you see this, please mark that turn more clearly next year. If not for this, I would give race production 5 stars.

I traveled from eastern Illinois to run this race, my first post-covid race and first marathon in 2.5 years. The race expo was great, held in a hotel a few blocks from the capitol building. Production was fantastic for the most part, except we couldn’t finish in the football stadium this year because the Huskers decided to hold their stupid spring game the day before and they couldn’t clean up the field in time for us. I got to hear all about how “it ain’t the same this year”. We finished on the adjacent track instead. Oh well.
Lincoln may not be the prettiest city, but this course milked what it had to offer, from the downtown to some nice neighborhoods to some quality parks. This is by far the biggest, oldest, and most reputable marathon in Nebraska, so it’s a good choice for you 50 staters looking to run in Nebraska.
Plenty of parking about a half mile away in some parking garages downtown.
The crowd support was amazing here. The city really showed up to cheer us on and plenty of spectators handed out water or beans or oranges as well as the official water tables. As other reviews say, they hand out cups with straws at the water tables here. Makes it easier to drink between steps.
I smoked the first half in about 1:48, but died on the back end (2:28). Mostly because I didn’t train enough, but also because the back half was a lot of black tar roads with little/no shade and it was sunny and low 70s by 10am. It got up to 89 that afternoon and I really struggled here, 25 minutes worse than any other marathon I’ve run (4 others so far). Be prepared for those tar roads, few turns, little shade on the back half if you run this one. I would still recommend this as a good Nebraska race!

This was my 3rd time running this race in 4 years. Once again, we ran through neighborhoods for the first 5 miles, then onto the campus of Wake Forest, down a massive hill, back up that huge hill at mile 8, and start/finished near a local YMCA. It was cool and cloudy today, perfect running weather. So much free food in the YMCA parking lot after the race, from oranges and bananas and bagels to chocolate milk and powerade, and a concert stand with some live music made this a great post-race party. See my 2017 report for more analysis.

I was dealing with severe mental health problems the night before this race :/ so I didn’t run my best. I hadn’t even smiled for 16 hours at that point, and severe depression will suck the life out of your legs. Thankfully, I recovered after the race, and my mental health is so much better now. This was a great race as always, and I’m thankful to everyone who volunteered and organized and cheered me on today! I still chuckle when I think about that I ran a half marathon while s**cidal. Lol.

The most difficult race I have run in my nine year career. Maybe I am soft because I don’t run trail races much, but water stops were every 3 miles which was NOT enough for a September race in North Carolina. I actually finished the first 8 miles in an hour flat, but totally ran out of gas for the last six miles. I’ll never forget how hard the last mile or two was, just a nightmare. I’m grateful to the Winston Salem State track team for handing out water, but I really needed more aid stations, every 1.5 miles or 2 miles maximum. I could hardly stand after I crossed the finish.

The course looped around Salem Lake, and a little ways out into the forest. Definitely a scenic run, although parts of the trail were low-lying and one area was flooded by a foot of water. Some tough hills around miles 9-11, and dirt trails around the 7-mile lake which should be easy on the knees.

One of my favorite and best half marathons! This race starts and finishes at the White Family YMCA in Winston-Salem. The first 4-5 miles are around some neighborhoods, and at mile 5 you run onto the Wake Forest campus. At mile 6 there is a HUGE downhill so steep that you have to hold yourself back. Briefly run through a wooded area at mile 6 before a mile or two of residential streets, then you return the way you came. There is a clock at the 6.5 mile mark to show you how you’re doing. I think you dip onto the WFU campus again around mile 8, and some of the Demon Deacon track team will cheer you on. Try saying “Go Demon Deacons!”, and they will explode with cheering. You have to climb that monster hill again at mile 9, pass through the Wake campus one more time, then it’s just 2 miles to the finish. I ran this one 3 times, and it’s always great weather, slightly chilly, but a great Triad atmosphere. Great after-race party with lots of granola bars and bananas and hot water for oatmeal/hot chocolate, and oranges and chocolate milk and Gatorade. Almost a full lunch right there! Well organized race, good weather, good city. Nice pre-holiday race to burn off the turkey.

This was a pretty run in mid-July near Lake Phalen to raise money for refugees. The DJing and pre-race food were solid, and looking back, it was a nice course that ran next to the lake for pretty much all course. Sadly, it was the worst time I have ever gotten in a 5k despite having run since 2012, because I didn’t run all summer AND I overstretched. Add that to a nice sunny mid-July day and lake-effect wind. But don’t let that stop you! Objectively, it was a nice lake race. I just nearly died because I didn’t train all summer.

It was rainy and gloomy today, and we started and ended right next to an old church in Winston-Salem, I think. This was St. Patrick’s Day weekend so everyone was wearing green shirts and beads. Tons of kids running this 5K here and plenty of casual runners. I did it with my running club from High Point University. I seem to remember winning an age group award, but that didn’t matter because I was beaten by someone running in the full Chick-fil-A cow costume. He/she beat me by a minute in the 10K (46 minutes!!), and it remains one of the most incredible things I’ve seen in 9 years of running. Those costumes are a heat stroke waiting to happen. This guy’s costume shoes were falling apart on the home stretch and he still kept grinding. Mad props to this mad cow.

Not important details:
-I ran the 10k, not 5k (but 5k is the only thing listed here)
-Start/finish line was in a parking lot, right next to a government office or something. You can wait inside that building before the race starts if you’re cold, or if you need water or need to pee
-I think you could park on the side of the road a little ways from the start. We took a bus.
-Pretty good race production, and I ran this on Halloween 2015, so plenty of Halloween spirit. Many runners decided to dress up as costumes
-I just remember running through a lot of neighborhoods, and a decent amount of hills
-A solid black long sleeve shirt with a skull on it that I still wear
IMPORTANT DETAILS!!!
-I watched 3 people wearing Rock, Paper, and Scissors costumes finish together in ’15. Props to them for running 6 miles looking like B-level mascots XD

I can’t remember too much about this one, except that it runs through Jetton Park in Cornelius, which is beautiful. I ran this in 2013 and took a wrong turn 0.3 miles from the finish, because a volunteer waving a flag at an intersection shrugged when I asked her for directions. But I think ’14 was better.

If you signed up for a 5k in early July in North Carolina, you know what you’re getting into. This race starts and ends next to the Huntersville Family Fitness and Aquatics center. You go downhill to Statesville Road, then take the exit ramp down to Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road. Since it was all downhill, my first mile was 6:40 (still my fastest mile split in a race ever), but miles 2 and 3 were about 9 minutes each. From Mt. Holly-Huntersville, you go to Old Statesville Road, then onto Verhoeff Drive where you finish up at the HFFA. Not much beauty, just 45 mph roads. I think you get a blue shirt as swag.

My second year running this. If I recall correctly, I started out way too fast, and I think I was 3rd place half a mile in, before dropping like a hundred places. But I took one minute off last year’s time. Again, it starts downtown near the fork in the road by the Flatiron Kitchen & Taphouse. Huge downhill at mile 1, winds into a greenway and then goes into neighborhoods for the last 1.5 miles before finishing downtown again, near beautiful Davidson College. I think the DC women’s lacrosse team ran it this year, and I beat most of them, including 2 or 3 I was neck and neck with down the final stretch. Not much of a flex, but I was proud of myself then.

This race starts and ends at North Meck High School. Not as pretty as some 5ks in Davidson or Cornelius. Since it ran mostly on 45 mph roads around the outskirts of Huntersville, I did terribly the two years I ran it (I liked park runs more back then). But it was definitely for a good cause, commemorating all the local high schoolers who have lost their lives since 1997. The production and DJing was great, but the course was meh.