Jessica Masters's Staging Area

I’d give the marathon a B- … Shuttling to the start took a while (good thing I went a half hour early!) and because you had to shuttle to the start, they pushed the start time back. I’d rather start early – especially as a slower (5 hour) marathon runner and especially since the weather was ridiculously hot this year! I read on Facebook that they were closing the course early, ahead of walkers who were keeping pace. It didn’t affect me, but I wanted to share for any walkers considering doing the race. It was especially problematic since they sent out warnings about the weather/heat telling everyone to slow down significantly. I was impacted however by the fact that they also shut down gear check and moved it a half hour early. I didn’t appreciate having to track down my things after running 26.2 miles, especially as an out of town runner who couldn’t just pick up things later in the week. I don’t care if there were only 50 bags left, keep the check open until the time you said you would.

Otherwise. The race was well organized, I could easily find all the information I needed online. Plenty of water and aid stations along the course, which was great with the heat! I loved the shirt given to marathoners – a quarter zip is much nicer than a T-shirt! The course itself was marked very clearly. It’s VERY hilly – killer! Apparently this year was a new course, and I wish I had seen it before because the way the course flows now, the first half of very energetic and the second is boring. Lots of Akron neighborhoods handing out snacks and holding signs of encouragement in the beginning, and then pretty desolate on the second half of the course when I probably could have used extra motivation and some snacks! Plus: What marathoner wants the milkshake mile in the front half? I might have stopped around mile 20, but not mike 6 or wherever it was!

Finisher festival was fun, albeit a bit quiet by the time I came through. Luckily I got a loud cheer because I entered the stadium at the same time as a wheelchair participant. Medals are really nice, good quality. I wished it was as cool as the series medal.

Expo was smaller than I expected, seemed like a lot of local organizations which weren’t very attractive to me as an out of towner. But meeting Des Linden more than made up for it! Super cool!!

I loved this marathon. Maybe it was because my first one, but I just loved the energy. I’ll never forget standing in the starting corrals, Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” blasting while spotlights and helicopters light up the dark sky! I was excited about running over the Ambassador bridge (gorgeous views!) and running through Canada was fun! The tunnel was hot, stinky, and kinda freaked me out though… I enjoyed running through Corktown, the block parties in Indian Village, and even though I felt like I was being water-boarded by the rain, running around Belle Isle is cool! The expo was huge and awesome – lot of cool stuff!

My only complaint was that this year they didn’t get the marathon shirts printed on time. They gave us a yucky plain black ink on white cotton t-shirt at the expo, but we didn’t get the performance long sleeve tees for a few weeks. I ran a marathon – i want the d**n shirt to wear proudly the next day! Lol