Michael Goldman's Staging Area

Thank you OKC for rolling out the carpet for us runners. Everything about this race was top notch. Great course, great crowd support throughout, completely closed course so no interference from vehicles, plenty of official aid stations (and enough unofficial to get a pretty good buzz going if that’s your thing!). And OKC is a pretty neat city – stay in Bricktown.

Only complaint would be not enough porta-potties at start area, and that bag check was woefully mismanaged. They assigned tags to the bags (rather than use your bib number) and when they ran out of tags, they said they couldn’t take any more bags. This was a case of the person in charge having no clue how to modify their procedure when situation calls for it. I had to scramble to get to the other bag check spot and ended up being practically the last runner to start (17 minutes after gun). All good though thanks to chip timing.

I would do this race every year if it were easier to get to. This is a must for 50 staters needing Oklahoma.

A beautiful morning with perfect temps for a nice race along the Gulf of Mexico. The start area could use more port-a-potties. 11 1/2 miles along the beachfront road were perfectly flat and newly paved making for a smooth run. The views of the Gulf were spectacular. The final 1.5 miles was up a highway ramp on an out-and-back; the climb was not too bad but the ramp was slanted right to left which was severe enough to make for an uneven landing on each step. This probably wouldn’t have bothered me if it were early in the race. The sun stayed behind the clouds until the finish and we had a slight breeze to keep us cool; I can’t give credit to the race director for the weather. I felt bad for the marathoners as it got considerably warmer once the sun was out. Finish offerings were great and everyone was given 6 tickets for beer. Unfortunately they were allowing people to take all 6 of their beers in a to-go box so they were out of the good beer by the time many came through. I heard they were completely out by the time the mid-pack marathoners were coming in. They should remedy this in future races. Overall a great event but since it is beach-front, I could see how different weather conditions (full sun, windy, rain) could make for a miserable day on the run.

Ran the 2018 running of this race while on a 20th wedding anniversary vacay in Savannah. This is a flat course through a beautiful area outside Savannah. I hit a PR while enjoying the views. This is an awesome event with the best race director ever. He gave me a special bib number to commemorate our anniversary (I wanted to honor my wife’s sacrifices while I travel the country trying to run a half in all 50 states). I would do this race every year if I were a local. Only con is that there are lots of sandflies at the staging area so the finish area is not conducive to a great afterparty (because who doesn’t like that and deserve a cold beer after a half marathon)? Swag this year was an OrangeMud towel that I love.