Matthew Remkiewicz's Staging Area

The ONLY good thing about this event is some of the views. If you’re not from Hawaii, you wanna see the sights. You can see the sights on your own without wasting half your day on a run. But if you still think you wanna do this race, lemme tell you why you shouldn’t:
1) the tshirt is meh, ok and the medal is subpar, and you have to go hunting through the finish line festival post 26.2 miles to find where to get your shirt (I had to ask around)
2) there is no time limit on the race. This means people who shouldn’t be doing a marathon or going to be doing it. I didn’t have any business being there either as I didn’t train. But at least I’ve been an actual runner. There were too many people who just don’t understand basic race etiquette. Stopping in the middle of the crowd to take pictures of the STARTLINE! Stopping for several seconds in front of the photographers along the course, blocking others from getting their photos as they continue past. Stopping in the middle of the course at water stations. Cutting through and just generally having no regard for anyone else out there.
3) there is no limit on entrants. WAAAAYYYYY too many people on the course. Not enough room in the corrals; I couldn’t even get to my actual starting spot. At the start, there were too many people to really start moving until several hundred yards past the start line. For the first mile I spent more time running left and right than forward because of the slow moving large crowd. There were strollers, wheelchairs, little children (as young as toddlers), and people on crutches and canes. Also, the 10k and the full marathon start in the same place at the same time. So even more crowding than was necessary. (More on that later.) All they have to do is have the 10k start 1 hour later and they can fix that easily.
4) the 10k is course is literally just the first 10k of the marathon. If you do the 10k, you pass the 10k marker on the marathon course, continue a few hundred yards more, then randomly peel off to the right in a narrow hard to notice “finish line.” If you’re an idiot, you might miss it and keep moving down the marathon course. I noticed quite a few of these types of people.
5) there were not enough water stations and NO food stations. Even in December, by 8am it’s hot and humid in Honolulu. Yet this race had fewer water stations than any other one I’ve ever done and it was the first ever that had 0 food stations. It would’ve been an easy way for them to add a sponsor even, but nope. I usually don’t run actual events with my own water as there is always enough on the course. Instead, I had to stop twice to get Powerade or else fall to dehydration due to the hot humid weather and the lack of water stations. Fortunately, I carried extra energy gels with me, so the lack of race stops didn’t affect me there.
6) medical was horribly unprepared and understaffed. Due to there being so nonrunners in a hot and humid environment, medical staff had their hands full with legitimate serious medical concerns (I saw several people removed from course by ambulance). This left no skilled personnel to assist with minor medical needs. I asked for an ice wrap for my knee. I was handed a snack size ziplock bag with a couple pieces of ice and sent away. Only after I insisted and continued to pester the non-emergency staff, did I finally get the tape guy (literally was this one guy’s only task) to come over and get me my wrap. I get it, there are more important medical concerns to deal with than my swollen, aching, and tired knee. But this staff of volunteers were not medically trained and had no clue what they were doing. And they were hopelessly understaffed. With 30,000+ runners, most of whom are not actually physically fit, in an extremely dangerous weather environment, you should know to plan for more medical care.

This race was overcrowded, mismanaged, and just all around extremely disappointing. I will never run it again and I highly suggest you don’t either. But, if you do insist on running it, just don’t plan on a PR (too crowded to get a good pace, too hot to push your hardest) and make sure you properly prepare for the conditions (heat and lack of replenishment on course).