Maddy Crowley's Staging Area

Pros:
Super flat and lovely fall scenery! The support downtown and in some of the neighborhoods is very strong and you get to see all of Indianapolis. I love the medal and the logistics were extremely streamlined/easy. I had a very easy first marathon and felt like there was plenty of water and sports drinks along the way, even if the mile 18 station ran out of cups!
Cons:
ROUGH roads in some parts and the long stretch from miles 19-23 with no spectators or cheering were really mentally tough. You run along some extremely busy roads where only one lane is blocked off and there were many intersections where cars should have been stopped/turned around and were instead able to pull through in the middle of throngs of people. I was very confused by the road closure system and felt like the traffic control was sketchy once you were out of downtown. Also for Brooks being a sponsor, and this being one of the biggest races in the country, the tech shirts were cheap quality and a bit of a bummer.
OVERALL: I would give this an 8/10! I am biased because it will always be my first marathon and I had a great experience all things considered, but if you have raced a lot around the country some of the nitpicks may bother you. I would love to come back to this race and enjoy the perfect weather and Hoosier hospitality again!

This was one of the hardest races I’ve run not only for the course, but also for the decision to have runners start in some very severe weather conditions. I don’t think there would have been much difference in starting on time vs delaying it unfortunately, but there was definitely a high risk of being struck by lightning and the pounding rain was absolutely a mental challenge. However, considering that I was already 2/3 of the way through the three-way challenge and had travelled for the race, failure was not an option!
The race production, swag, medals, everything is top tier. I literally couldn’t take all my freebies and gifts home as there wasn’t enough room in my suitcase! I thought the course was tough but showed off the best of Cincinnati (at least what I could see of it through the rain). The hills are no joke, from about mile 5-8 you’re really going to push! However I clocked a mile PR after that on mile 10 with the downhill so you can make up time later. Crowd support was also still incredible despite the weather, and even during the 10K and 5K on Saturday-it’s nice to hear cheering for shorter distances. Logistics are very smooth and easy for the challenges and even on race day with tons of people to navigate.
My cons: corrals were not respected or monitored for any races. Almost to the point of being pointless. My brother ran the half and was placed in a corral for a finish time of under 2:00-he said immediately off the start people were walking and would not move over. Also for how well executed the race is, I still saw the same insane family from last year running with their seven year old as race bandits, which is unacceptable. People have been yanked off courses for less and I would have expected the same from Flying Pig considering the bad press they got last year.
TLDR: If you like hills, puns, more free stuff than you’ll know what to do with, but can handle some questionable race directing, you’ll enjoy Flying Pig.

Gosh does anyone in Iowa cheer? Beautiful day, nice flat course, but for the amount of people standing and staring at the runners silently it was giving more Children of the Corn than Chariots of Fire. From what I gathered, the half marathon course changed to run exclusively through several parks. This was somewhat disappointing as the full marathon gets to enjoy more of downtown Des Moines, running on the Drake Relays track, and then looping to the park. We were also a bit cramped on the path for miles 3/8 as they decided to have those run two ways. Otherwise pretty standard race, there was a small outdoor expo and not much free swag ahead of time. I also didn’t get any food afterward, not sure if they ran out of bananas or if I just missed some obvious table in my post run high. Ran this to cross off Iowa, was a fan of Des Moines, but don’t think I would go out of my way to come back.