Coast Guard Marathon

North Carolina was the 19th different state that I have run a half marathon or further in. If you are traveling from out of state like me you have a couple options of where you can fly in to. I flew to Raleigh then drove nearly 3 hours to Elizabeth City, Richmond is closer to two hours away and if you are willing to pay a bit of a premium you could fly to Norfolk which is about an hour away. Hotels in Elizabeth city were cheap (though I booked really early, there is a limited supply so the prices spiked closer to race day). Rental car prices in Raleigh were also very reasonable. If you are not from the area do yourself a favor and spend a day or two at the North Carolina outer banks an hour to the east while you are in the state. It is a beautiful area.

EXPO/PACKET PICK UP:
This was a pretty small expo but decent for a race of this size. There were probably 15 booths in addition to the race gear vendor. The packet pickup was at the museum directly across the street from the finish line.
There was plenty of parking (although I went after the Saturday 5k had mostly finished). Bib pick up was an in an out process with no complications.

Parking/Access: Parking at the start line was not difficult. There was a map provided with many lots around down town where you could park for free as well as street parking. Pay attention to where you are parking relative to the course if you are a fast finisher or only running the half, it might be difficult to get out of down town while waiting to cross a street filled with runners.

T-Shirts/SWAG: The medal for this race was top quality, it is well made, sturdy and quite heavy. The medal 100% reminds me of the race in that it shows the coastal town you ran in, shows a coast guard ship, and has a coast guard sea plane and helicopter that you can move across the top of the medal. The design for the half and full were identical, excapt that the half medal was lined with silver and silver on the back where is said half marathon. The medal for the full was gold instead of silver. I wish it showed the distance on the front but based on color you could still know which distance each medal represented. (See Attached Photos). The race shirt was a T shirt, I prefer a Tech T that I can race in but I do understand that in the long run I will likely get more use and wear out of a T-shirt.(See attached Photo) As someone who prefers to run in the race shirt to give all of my race pictures a feel unique to that race I was a tiny let down. The shirt however was quite nice and represents the race including a remembrance to the first coast guard solider who died in combat back in 2004.

Aid Stations: The aid stations were well stocked. There were 6 (7 if you count one that you ran by twice) aid stations on the course. That was plenty considering we had great race day conditions in the 50’s but in the part of the country that depending on the year could be very hot and humid they could maybe use a few more. They all had water and an electrolyte drink that I had never heard of. One of them also apparently had energy gels but I didn’t notice that. I didn’t hear anything about supplies running out at any time during the race. I was near the front so I was never really in a group, but the number of volunteers was more than enough. I’m sure there were some real slow downs at aid station as volunteers were filling and handing out cups as fast as they could pour them at busier times. The volunteers were really clear about who had water or Gatorade. If I could make one critique it would be to have a few more garbage cans 100 yards after the stations so you could have time to finish your drink before trying to toss your cup.

Course Scenery/Elevation Difficulty: The course starts right outside the museum where you did packet pick up also serves as the finish/post race party area. The race starts at 7:30am which in a warmer year it would be a huge help in beating the heat/humidity, last year it was much warmer but incredibly windy. I found plenty of room to warm up around the large park area. They had a very long start chute with well marked pace groups. The course was extremely flat. I don’t really remember any hills. The condition of the roads in town over the first several miles were in need of being repaved, not terrible but enough that you want to watch your footing. The course is about 2/3 through town and surrounding neighborhoods and 1/3 on an active coast guard base. The town was very pretty and had southern charm with the look of the big trees and pillars on porches of the houses. Running onto the base was a unique experience. There were a wall of guards making sure that everybody who entered the base was wearing a bib. Shortly after running onto the base you turned onto and ran the entire length of the airplane runway. This was a unique experience and I made sure to pay attention to the end where you could see all the tire marks from landing and the course felt a bit sticky from running on the rubber. FYI runways are long, like a mile and a half long. There was zero aid station support on the runway (for obvious reasons they don’t want people dropping trash/cups anywhere near plane engines). You are also extremely exposed during this time, the wind was calm this year but last year I understand this part was a bit brutal with nothing to shelter you from the wind at all. If you take the time to look around in town and on base when you run you will really enjoy the views. The last 2-3 miles of the course could have used another volunteer or two to make sure that you knew you were running the correct route but it still went fine. There wasn’t a ton of crowd support other than the last half mile but I didn’t really mind it. I must add that this seems like a decent BQ course, there were quite a few sub 3 hr marathon finishers.

Race Management: This Race was very well run, especially so for a small-medium-ish race (450 finishers for the half, closer to 500 for the full, ~600 for the 5k). I found their website to be the best source of info, they also email you a few bits of advice including a race guide and a guide of things to do in the area. Other things to compliment this race on: They had age group awards which were wooden paddles and a ceremony with a podium the top 3 in each group. For the first time I actually won my age group so this part was a thrill for me. The start area had a bag check area by the start line that was open until the start. They did have pace setters for quite a few goal paces, impressive for a race of this size. The finish was about average in terms of the usual finish line fare they had bottles of water and all the electrolyte drinks you could carry (apparently the 5k people didn’t take very many). You had a food toke on your bib which meant you could get a pulled pork sandwich from a local BBQ joint (we ate there for lunch after the race and it was good), your bib also had a free beer token from a local brewery. They had a band playing and some vendors around. One really cool thing that happened was the Commandant of the coast guard (the head of the entire coast guard) was there to take pictures with all of the age group and overall winners. A minor critique, they did not have free race Photos, in my opinion just charge us all an extra $5-$10 and make them free. A minor disappointment was that in 2023 they had a coast guard helicopter fly-over timed with the race start but that didn’t happen this year.

Overall I would say this race is a very good way to check North Caolina off your 50 state list. I highly recommend this race, there is a reason it is rated so highly.