Sergey Lazutin's Staging Area

A fun relaxed race in the beautiful Santa Barbara.
I very rarely run halh marathons, but I was there for work and decided to participate.
The organization was smooth, the run is challenging enough with a couple of small uphills to make it fun.

The main highlight of this marathon is its location – Florence is a great destination which has a lot to offer: history, culture, cuisine and more.
Beside the gorgeous location the race is pretty average in my opinion.
The organization is fine. It’s a little crowded – human traffic jams here and there.
I’m glad I ran it once, but currently don’t have plans to repeat.

Beautiful fall time in New England. No smooth running – rocks and roots covered with leaves.
Nice laidback atmosphere, not much swag, but food and drink after the race are always appreciated.

Another mysterious run by Revel where you have a huge vertical drop, but can qualify for Boston.
The weather was unusually hot, so running from the mountains to the valley the temperature changed from 30 to 90 degrees in five hours.
The race is similar to other Revel races, well organized.

The race was rescheduled from spring to fall in 2020. There were a lot of changes to address covid concerns, so I think in normal years the run is even more fun. It was great to finally race again.
The course is a little longer than 50k. ~53? Some runners say 55, but I don’t think so. The elevation gain is very mellow 3,000+’.
You can camp at the start line.
The scenery is amazing: desert vistas, lakes, river… You can view for miles. In return there’s no cover from the elements: it was very windy on our run and definitely don’t forget your sunscreen.
There are just enough sandy and rocky sections to make the track fun, but allow you to run.
The course is a bit unusual: 3 loops which you do twice coming back to the start/finish 6 times in total. Some people may not like that.
I could use more markings on the course, but it’s a personal preference, in the end I never got lost.
Overall everything was well organized.

Silverton is a charming small mountain town. Inexpensive, with great laid-back atmosphere and friendly locals.
The course is mostly on unpaved SUV road (and you need to share it with the SUVs and ATVs (not a big deal)).
2019 was a high snow year which in my opinion made the race better: running through the snowy mountains and a little bit on snow. Couple stream crossings, but nothing bad.
What’s different about this race – it starts at elevation of 9,300′ and goes up to 12,900′. You better be acclimated 🙂
Did I mention the scenery? Alpine views are amazing. You also run next to historic abandoned mines.
It’s a smaller production – few dozen runners for the 50k. The “swag” (t-shirt, cup) is something you can use later and the food was good.

Late March is one of the best times to visit Moab and Southern Utah in my opinion: the trails are usually snow free, the temperatures are pleasant (normally around 30-60F), but hordes of tourists didn’t come to Canyonlands, Arches and other popular areas yet.
Why not to visit Moab, explore absolutely stunning nature around it, camp and run a race?
Distances to choose from are from 10 to 50 miles.
Elevation gain is just over 4000′ for 50k, so not much of uphill.
Mad Moose Events organizes a lot of races and knows what it’s doing.
There is free camping at the start/finish line (and some participants and organizers arrive couple days early).
You need to drive 2.5 miles on the dirt road to get to the start. Most of the cars would be fine, but the ones with very low clearance may not be able to make it.
The views on the course are amazing. The course itself includes quite a bit of running on sandy roads which are not as much fun as single track, but I still enjoyed it and there is also single track, slabs, rocks and even a little bit of easy scrambling.
Aid stations are a little sparse, but the food is great. Thank you to all the volunteers!
As for my personal performance: everything went smoothly enough, no unpleasant surprises, but it was the first long race of the year and I was expectantly slow.