Miki Foster's Staging Area

The folks putting together this run are so great! This race feels very supportive and they really do celebrate the slow runners. You look around a neighborhood and there are lots of sweet neighborhood cats that wander up to you and you can feed them. Very sweet!!

This is a great race and was my first ever marathon. Philadelphia has great spirit and found a lot of great cheering, a full gospel choir, DJs, random singers and drummers and lots of spectators offering candy, beer, even shots!
The shuttles from the hotels were well organized as was the bag check. Race production was good even if there was some more lonely parts of the course everything was really well marked. I found the course also great to look at – lots of different views through the city central, different neighborhoods and through the botanical garden along the water. It was pretty cold and towards the end couple of the aid stations were packed up by the time I got to them even though there seemed to be a good amount of people behind me.
I had a mishap around the mile 8 porto-potties. I am pretty slow but even so the line for the bathrooms was around 10 minutes and by the time I hit them they were pretty decimated and there was no toilet paper to be found which cost me several more minutes as I scrounged. Some amazing person spared me a few tissues (Thank you person!!) but definitely something i need to remember for the future. Unless you are lightning fast byotp!
Provisions at the finish line included broth, bananas, and granola bars and thankfully the race blankets that shielded us from the crazy cold winds that kept blowing throughout the whole race. I also really like the long-sleeved tech shirt – definitely the women’s sizes run bigger than other tech shirts I’ve gotten so maybe size down? The medal is also very cool and has a fully functional bell! I also thought it was funny when I was getting lunch around town I kept hearing bells ringing :).

I liked this race more than I thought I would. It was very well organized and all the areas are really well marked. The different races do not start close together and the half start is pretty far away from the race central. If you are running the half try to budget some extra time to get to your starting line on time or else you’ll be running with the 5.8 mile folks.
Gotta say the one biggest drawback of this course is that you really have to acclimate yourself to that horsesh**t smell because it is EVERYWHERE. At one point I did dry heave because it was so intense. This is also not a flat course by any means – it’s a lot of rolling hills. The course is beautiful central park and the energy is really positive. I also really like the time of year that this race is too. The weather is a little on the cold side but that is my preference. I would definitely run this race again.