Paul Seay's Staging Area

Great venue for a race, with a start and finish on the oceanside boardwalk and great (mostly) paved trails in between. You meander through considerable natural areas. It is just a great place to run and remarkably flat.

It was nice early, but it got really hot later in the AM. Beware of the temps. Also, you spend a lot of miles on concrete, which is not my favorite. The scenery is good, and interesting when you run along the river and go through mission sites.

I was a pacer, so not a normal experience. They do a great job with race production, and the race benefits from using the convention center before and after the race. This was very nice.

I really liked this location a lot, at a wonderful resort island near Charleston. I think it was really well planned and executed, though I know some would complain the number of runners was taxing for the infrastructure (1500 Marathoners and 3K half). The roads are largely shaded, often from live oaks stretching across and forming a Spanish moss covered canopy. The course is mostly flat, with some gradual easy grades, but there are a lot of turns and the course runs long as a result. The standard race swag is good and there are terrific options for purchase. I would highly recommend.

The team does a great job all the way around, the location is terrific, giving you a loop tour of the island. The weather in 2025 was perfect. The size of the race is manageable for the location, but I can see why they cap it. This is a neat area, not far from Wilmington and other interesting places along the NC coast.

The race transitioned from Jack and Jills Downhill to Wicked Fast after Boston changed their application rules to penalize downhill races. The result for Montana was a new route, old swag, and a little less organization than I prefer. Regardless, it was good and I was glad I did it. The elevation drop over the 26.47 miles (seemed a bit long to me) was great, with no really steep parts and quite a bit of really gradual elevation loss. My only complaint about the new course was that it is difficult to set a PB when the course has 21 miles of loose and/or muddy gravel road. If you hate asphalt, this may be the race for you. And Paradise Valley is beautiful.

This is a really well produced race, showcasing much of downtown Nashville. The race starts with a downhill through lower Broadway (bars and crowds on each side) then turns and goes out through music city square, around Belmont, along a greenway, inside the baseball diamond, through Bicentennial park, across the river, into Shelby Park, and finishes at Titans Stadium. There are crowds for much of the race (not in greenway and park areas) and quite a bit of live and recorded music along the way. And it benefits St. Jude. Everyone should do this race. For the negatives- it is in late Spring, so heat and humidity are very possible. The hills are worse than advertised- don’t believe websites which show hills for the first six miles and flat thereafter. It is not for very long anywhere, so prepare for rolling hills which are long and gradual (two in the first third, one after crossing the river) as well as short and steep (three in Shelby Park). Overall- you should plan to do the race once, but it is pretty difficult if you are needing a PR.

This is a good race, with plenty of rolling hills. I really like Chattanooga as a smaller city, and I think of the race in a similar way- not too small or two big. There are no concerns with parking, and the size of the race is big enough where you are always running with other people out on the course. The race seems well managed, The course is a little repetitive, but you get to cross the river four times. I really enjoyed it.

There’s a lot to like about this race, which I will likely run again. I think they do a great job producing the race, which benefits from the Von Braun convention center where racers can gather/prepare indoors prior to the race and eat afterwards. The weather was a little dicey in 2024 with a little more wind, rain, and cold than I wanted. It would have been perfect 24 hours earlier or later, so I think the mid December time frame is good. Also, it is nice to see all the downtown Christmas trees (community competition). The medals are cool and everyone likes running through the space center. The hills are rolling and relatively mild.