Lia Gagliardi's Staging Area

The first 4 miles are beautiful and are along the coastline, as the name of the marathon alludes to! After those 4 miles, the majority of the course is run along 2 long roads that are open to traffic, with absolutely nothing to look at in regards to scenery. At mile 18, you finally cross back over the main road and head back towards the coastline, where it is scenic compared to what your scenery was during miles 5-17. There is a “sandy” part of the course that you are on for about 0.5 miles or so, which made it interesting. The course itself had a small, gradual incline from miles 5-12 or so, with the occasional rolling hill. From miles 12-21, it it fairly flat, with an occasional small hill. At miles 21 and 24 respectively, there are larger hills (not large in the grand scheme of things, but a hill nonetheless late in the race). After that last hill, it is smooth sailing to the finish. Although the weather was kind of lousy, there was still a great crowd, as small local races are concerned (low 50s and drizzling/raining/windy)! There were a lot of water and gatorade stations, that also had Ucan gels. Plenty of bathrooms as well. One thing I was disappointed about were the lack of specific pacers that the website said would be available. They did not have the 3:35 and 3:40 pacers, but they did have the 3:30 and 3:50, which were as close to what I was looking for.

The race pick-up was at the park where the finish line is. It was fairly quick, and had a couple of small vendors. There were designated parking areas that you signed up for, and then got shuttled to the start line. They were punctual this year, which was not the case back in 2023 when I did the half marathon, and we started right at 7:30am as we were supposed to. The finish line had a lot of food/drinks and beer given out, as well as live music. If the weather were better, I would’ve stayed there longer to enjoy it.