Suzanne Smith's Staging Area

Course limit = 7 hours, My Finish = 6:08:21

What I liked:
The Marathon is a stand alone event. This makes a big difference on the later miles. I loved that Philly had the Marathon as it’s own event it meant for more support because everyone was completing the same race. The start/finish line being at the Art Museum was really cool. I loved the medals. All the workers/volunteers I interacted with were wonderful.

What I didn’t:
It felt like there weren’t enough water stops. Also, buy the end some of the water stops ran out of cups, and were only helpful to people who had water bottles. The post race offerings were skimpy by the 6hr mark.

The city of Philly was supportive though, that was a very nice part of the race. The last out and back (~17 mi – ~23 mi) was along the river and into Manayunk – Manayunk showed up!!

I have a couple criticisms, but all in all the National Women’s half was a solid half.
The course does do a good job of looping past the monuments – so if your a tourist, there are some nice photo ops. The course support was good, the volunteers were attentive (I have seen other small races with teenagers not paying attention).
The out and back from Mile 5 – 10 was lame, but necessary when running in the city limits, it’s easy to get that permit.
Running along the Potomac was nice.
I did feel like the back of the pack support was there, the EmCee was still welcoming finishers after the 3hr mark. They only had water and green bananas at the end though… I am a big fan of the post race party, so the lack of one was upsetting.
I am a DC local so I biked/walked to the race start, so I can’t speak to parking. The police/emt were very present and made me feel safe.

tl;dr
Great Costumes, but not for the casual, fun runner.

I am a slower runner so the mark of a well run race is when the back of the pack is celebrated and cared for as well as the fast runners. We all run the same distance.
It is because of my back of the pack mentality that I cannot give the Devil’s Chase a good rating.
Finishers that took more than an hour and a half crossed a quieter and unimpressive finish line. Plus, the organizers ran out of medals.
This was my sister’s FIRST race, we traveled all the way from Washington, DC. She crossed the finish line after putting in the work and was unceremoniously informed by a kid that there were no more medals. When she talked to one of the race organizers, visibly upset (and rightfully so), they kind of shrugged, and took longer than one would like to suggest mailing it to her.
I had given her my medal when the same organizer came up and gave her a medal we suspect she took from someone else.

This race is held every July, and is a road race with the majority of the course in full sun. It is meant to be hot, humid, and grueling.

2019 was my second time doing it, and I was lucky with the weather again. It was beautiful race weather!

The race itself is sponsored by the local brewery, which is awesome. I am from the Central New York area, and this race reminds we what is good about it.

21 water/ice stops along the 9.3 mile course, PLUS course support from the community handing out popsicles, more ice, and the occasional beer.

The crowd support this year was not as good as last year, but it definitely was still great.

I was in the Green corral, which felt SOOOOO crowded for the first 4 miles, it wasn’t until I got through the golf course did I actually feel like I was running at my pace and gait.

The course crowding is definitely my only complaint.

People run this race just for the Access Granted after you finish. For those of you who don’t know what that means: people hover at their computers and speed to register for this race because once you’ve successfully finished this 17.75k (~11 mile) race you get guaranteed entrance into the Marine Corp Marathon (yay for skipping the lottery).

The course is a lollipop course that loops through the state park just outside of Quantico. It was pretty, and chilly, I mean it’s a March race so not a big surprise on the chill. But it was much hillier than I expected, also the MidAtlantic states had been uncharacteristically wet so the parts of the course that were not on a paved surface were muddy as f&#$.

They had water stops manned by Marines, which was nice. And there were cute signs along the course, but it was pretty quiet when it came to crowd support. (Keep that in mind if you are someone who needs crowd support.)

No food on the course, but the food after was good (popcorn!! = game changer).
Even though it was a limited entry race so it was smaller than pretty much all the other races I have ever done, there were A LOT of bottleneck areas. Especially in the beginning, on the hills, with the mud.

Though I did overhear another runner mention that they could tell who was just a road runner versus people who have trained on trails. Mud doesn’t bug me, I also was one of the ones who has trained on trails.