Overall Rating
Overall Rating (5 Reviews)
1.2
(5 Ratings)  (5 Reviews)
DIFFICULTY
4.6
SCENERY
2.2
PRODUCTION
1.4
SWAG
1.8
Be part of a mega GFNY Sebring race weekend with the marathon & half marathon on Saturday and the cycling marathon on Sunday. The marathon and half marathon start and finish at the scenic Barn at Paso Fino. Race on tranquil, scenic roads dedicated specifically for GFNY athletes via Central … MORE
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L (°F)  70  57  65  72  74
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Recent reviews

    megandit SPECTATOR '22

    The sheriff's office staff are great and genuinely concerned with the welfare of the runners on the course. The race event team shut off the announcements and music at the … MORE

    The sheriff’s office staff are great and genuinely concerned with the welfare of the runners on the course.

    The race event team shut off the announcements and music at the five hour mark. There were still about 30 runners on the course that were met with silence and staff that clearly did not want to be there any longer.

    As a spectator, it was hard to see people who just completed a major milestone with no one announcing their name or having a race crew to congratulate them.

    The course was uneven, and rough.

    DIFFICULTY
    5
    PRODUCTION
    2
    SCENERY
    3
    SWAG
    3

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    kkwalters SPECTATOR '22

    I was a spectator for two friends running this race in 2022, they selected this race in order to fulfill their virtual requirements for the 2023 NYC marathon. Myself I've … MORE

    I was a spectator for two friends running this race in 2022, they selected this race in order to fulfill their virtual requirements for the 2023 NYC marathon. Myself I’ve done over 100 races ranging from half marathons to 5ks, this is the worst experience any runner could ask for.
    1. The course was gravel in parts – not just loose stones but a mixture of old pavement and gravel that made it extremely hard to run on.
    2. The race staff abandoned the finish line after 5 hours, no music, no announcement of runners finishing was done after that. There was still roughly 30 runners yet to complete the full marathon.
    3. The sheriff was out monitoring the last runners – the race staff seemed to not care.

    DIFFICULTY
    5
    PRODUCTION
    1
    SCENERY
    3
    SWAG
    2
    My Media

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    Runner0926 FIRST-TIMER '22

    Aid stations were not spread out equally. Some pavement, some gravel, sand (mostly packed.) More like a trail race. Stretches of running alone. Started too late for Florida heat. I … MORE

    Aid stations were not spread out equally. Some pavement, some gravel, sand (mostly packed.) More like a trail race. Stretches of running alone. Started too late for Florida heat. I believe the people in charge are better at organizing cycling races.

    DIFFICULTY
    4
    PRODUCTION
    2
    SCENERY
    2
    SWAG
    1

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    slowandsteady FIRST-TIMER '21

    This was my 40th marathon, and the most poorly organized race I’ve run. Everyone involved was friendly and seemed to have great intentions, but this race was a comedy of … MORE

    This was my 40th marathon, and the most poorly organized race I’ve run. Everyone involved was friendly and seemed to have great intentions, but this race was a comedy of errors. Those of us running the fifty states dread Florida, the state without winter. I decided to do a “real” Florida race in the heat and humidity, rather than chickening out with a winter race on the Panhandle. A well-organized race makes your goal as easy as possible for you: you should only be worried about finishing, not about logistics. GFNY has operated 80 races, but never before a marathon; that may account for the wide variety of problems.

    The race website had three major errors. It said packet pick-up would end at 7pm the day before the race. After pick-up had already started, we got an email saying that we had pick up our packets by 5pm. This forced me to change my travel plans on the spot. Oh, but the singlets weren’t going to be ready by 5pm. (This was blamed on covid, but surely the RD at least knew about the problem by the time pick-up started. Couldn’t an announcement have been made earlier?) “No biggie,” I thought. “I don’t like singlets anyway.” Oh, but we were required to wear these singlets. I’ve only been required to wear a singlet once, at the Boston Marathon, with tens of thousands of runners, and a lot of people attempting to bandit. Why did this race with a few dozen runners need standardized singlets? The RD’s response: because the organizers had worked for months on them! Umm… hadn’t all of us worked for months, if not years, to prepare, including figuring out what clothes work best for us? No worries, said the RD, we could pick up the singlets at 7pm or the morning of the race. So if we didn’t make it to packet pick-up by 5pm, we were DQ’d, but we could pick up singlets at 7pm? This race was so small that we could have easily done registration, packets, and singlets in ten minutes at the start line. We could even still do the tedious and completely unnecessary online “check-in” that was a required prerequisite for picking up a packet for unexplained reasons.

    The second error on the website was the address for the parking, which was a mile from the actual parking. I walked to the race from a nearby hotel. There were many runners staying there. We got no directions or signage. The race website only gave the name of a road, not an address, for the start line, so we wandered along a state highway in the dark looking for a start line.

    Small races like this are usually directed by an experienced runner who takes the time to brief everyone on the course and to answer questions. An experienced runner also knows that schedules matter. This race’s published start time was 6:30am. That was the third error on the website. The race was actually scheduled for 6:45. In the heat and humidity of southern Florida, every minute before sunrise is precious. On top of that, we all had to be off the first section of the course by 7:50. Us slow pokes rely on accurate schedules for our pacing.

    So at 6:45, off we went. I soon ran into a pack of walkers. This was strange. I hadn’t noticed an early start for walkers. I wove my way through them. Everyone was walking! The director had sent us out with no guide and no one posted along the course. One runner took a wrong turn and the rest of us followed. At that point, the RD should have been on the PA system calling us back. Failing that, at least send some volunteers out to call us back! But, nope, at this race, we relied on word of mouth. It was a full two minutes before everyone realized that we had to go back to the start. Only after every single person had already turned around did we get a PA announcement. Now the race was starting at 7:00… making my concerns about heat and pace more pronounced.

    I took this opportunity to take off my singlet, which was oddly sized and felt like wearing a plastic bag. (The humidity was literally 100% at the start. If you’re going to spend months designing a singlet for a race in southern Florida, make it breathable!) I carried my singlet in my hand for the rest of the race to avoid getting scolded for not respecting the months of hard work.

    Apparently GFNY has a lot of signs with arrows on them. Rather than making new signs for this race, GFNY papered over the arrows with mileage markers. However, in the sun, the arrows showed up much more clearly than the mileage. (You want me to turn left into this cow pasture?)

    The early aid stations served two things: water and Coca-Cola. Seriously. I have only once tried drinking soda while running. It is a mistake I will not repeat. Maybe some runners like burping as they go, but at least serve some energy drinks for the rest of us. The volunteers at the tables were friendly, but totally clueless about how to be helpful. Many of them stood holding out exactly one cup of water, blocking the table from view. I had to move around them to get anything from the table. (Later tables were better stocked, though still didn’t have any traditional sports drink. I ended up relying on gel and water, rather than risking the Coke.)

    And the cherry on top of the whole experience was that there was no medal. The RD emailed three days later to say that the medals had been delayed for eight months because of–you guessed it–covid. In those eight months, had the RD not had a spare moment to let us know? How is it that between the online check-in, the packet pick-up, and the singlet pick-up, no one thought to tell us about the delayed medals and to collect our shipping addresses? The RD’s email said that if we wanted medals, we could email our shipping addresses. This seems like a ploy to keep shipping costs down by having most people not realize that shipping is available. Weeks later, I still haven’t received a medal or even a response to my email.

    This race combined all the worst parts of small, scrappy race (lonely course with few runners and few spectators, resources stretched thin, major errors on website, bad signage) with all the worst parts of big, faceless, corporate races (arbitrary rules, inflexibility, lack of personality and local charm).

    DIFFICULTY
    4
    PRODUCTION
    1
    SCENERY
    2
    SWAG
    1

    4 members marked this review helpful. Agree?

    GFNY Jun 26, 2022 at 4:30am

    Hello, my name is Uli, I am the race director of this race. I have been directing close to 100 races, mostly cycling races with up to 5000 participants, including… MORE

    Hello, my name is Uli, I am the race director of this race. I have been directing close to 100 races, mostly cycling races with up to 5000 participants, including our major race in NYC over 100 miles. I have run over 40 marathons myself. Given that, leading the race onto a wrong course right after the start was the most humiliating experience I ever had as a race director. I still have nightmares from it. My mistake was to trust the Sebring Raceway to turn on the floodlights so we could actually see the course. We're certainly not repeating that mistake and are changing the course. To your other points: Packet pickup: It was open until 7pm and at no point we communicated otherwise. Singlets: The shipment was crazy delayed and we chased DHL through Florida by driving from Sebring to Miami to Orlando on Saturday to finally get it to Sebring. Why are the singlets mandatory? In 2010, we decided to make the official cycling jersey mandatory attire at all GFNY events. This was the only way for us to get the race in NYC permitted so police was able to identify the participants. When we started running events, we decided to also make running singlets mandatory attire at our races. We’re by far not the first one to do this, many larges races in South America and Europe do have this. Being marathon runners ourselves, we of course made sure that the singlet is of the highest quality. We spent 8 months of R&D to make it extremely lightweight and breathable. We received raving reviews from the other runners, many saying it’s the best they ever had and buying a second one. It's something that is certainly not appreciated by all runners. But we do make it clear during registration that the official singlets have to be worn. Don't like it, don't race it. Parking: The parking and all other logistics have been clearly explained in the Race Guide that was on the website and emailed to all runners. Did you read it? Start time: The start time was changed to 6:45 because it was simply too dark to start at 6:30 as the lead runners would have left the illuminated Raceway still in the dark. This decision was made during race week and was communicated clearly at packet pickup and by email. Mile markers: We had made beautiful, large mile markers that arrived at the New York port two days before the race in our container after a 3 month odyssey on the ocean that included a broken down cargo ship near South Korea. At least we get to use them this year. I’m glad to hear that your life was not interrupted by Covid. It was very difficult for GFNY, yet we put on races we could while others simply cancelled them. Aid stations: There was of course also electrolyte at every aid station. Some runners like the sugar and caffein in Coke so we offered it. Medals: See cargo ship under Mile Markers. As soon as they arrived at our warehouse, we emailed them to all runners who wanted them. Shipping was of course at our cost. What we will change for 2022: We have a new course where we do not have to rely on a third party that doesn’t allow access the day before the race. We already have the singlets and medals and proper mile markers. We will again offer a fast course that is already USATF certified so you can use it as a Boston or NYC qualifier or run a PR. If you have any other questions, please email me at [email protected] Uli LESS

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    RunningMon FIRST-TIMER '21

    I registered for this race to pace a friend. I read all of the terms that I agreed to in the check boxes. When I went to packet pick-up, I … MORE

    I registered for this race to pace a friend. I read all of the terms that I agreed to in the check boxes. When I went to packet pick-up, I was told that a.) the race shirts were not yet in (and would be there at 6 pm, AFTER packet pick-up closed) and that b.) when they arrived we would be REQUIRED to wear the shirt in the race the next day. As anyone who has ever run a marathon knows, you don’t race in clothing that you have not previously tested in a long run. When I pointed this out to the race owner she snidely told me that she had run 20 Iron Man’s and never had trouble trying new things in a race. She specifically said “I’m not one of those people that can’t try new gels or anything in a race.” I responded, “well, I am. And I did not agree to wearing your shirt.” She insisted I did. I asked her to show me where and she spent a full five minutes scouring the registration page for a check box that asks for agreement to wearing the race singlet. Turns out….IT DOES NOT EXIST (I later reviewed the registration page and all the check boxes with a fine tooth comb. It isn’t there.) She then told me I would be disqualified if I didn’t wear the singlet.

    Ultimately they gave me a refund, which I was pleased with. I still went to the race to cheer on my friends and proceeded to watch the Race Director, on a bike, lead the runners the WRONG way. The racers had to walk back to the start and RE-START the race fifteen minutes later. What a disaster.

    I ran much of the course on my own. It was flat and fast. It had the potential to be a decent race.

    I am willing to give a new race the benefit of the doubt. But the race owners/directors were so pompous and rude and clearly disorganized. They should stick to bike races and stop shoving their merch down runner’s throats.

    DIFFICULTY
    5
    PRODUCTION
    1
    SCENERY
    1
    SWAG
    2

    3 members marked this review helpful. Agree?

    GFNY Jun 26, 2022 at 4:46am

    Mrs. Monica Kile presented herself at packet pickup on Saturday before the race. Soon, she started verbally attacking several staff members. Her main complaint was the mandatory race jersey. At… MORE

    Mrs. Monica Kile presented herself at packet pickup on Saturday before the race. Soon, she started verbally attacking several staff members. Her main complaint was the mandatory race jersey. At some point, she started recording the GFNY staff with her cellphone. As soon as she did, GFNY management escorted her out of the building and told her that she is no longer welcome at GFNY but would get a full refund. She accepted. The next day, she did not “run the course” as she claims but participated in the race. She used the bib number and timing chip she received at the registration before she was escorted out. Doing so, she committed a trespassing violation by entering the Sebring Raceway. She also stole at the aid stations. GFNY has refrained from prosecuting her. However, GFNY did warn fellow race organizers of her behavior. LESS

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    idrivethevan Jun 26, 2022 at 5:44am

    I attended this race to support a half dozen friends and this reply to this review is a complete fabrication. At no point was anyone escorted anywhere. No one was… MORE

    I attended this race to support a half dozen friends and this reply to this review is a complete fabrication. At no point was anyone escorted anywhere. No one was verbally assaulted, no one trespassed, the runner didn’t take a singlet, bib or chip (singlets weren’t there). Lidia Fluhme was incredibly unprepared and rather than acknowledging the situation and asking for runners’ understanding, she was terse and demanding. The race pleaded for flexibility on all their failures, yet were unwilling to allow runners any leeway on the many unusual polices that they had not communicated during race registration. She was dismissive of runners who rely on specific nutrition and clothing as a reason everyone should comply with wearing a cheap singlet which she claimed was a new design they’d developed. Her willingness to lie in her reply to these reviews is disturbing as there were many witnesses who can attest that none of the events described occurred and this brings up serious ethical issues. The City of Sebring might consider many of the capable race management companies in the region who could pull off a well run, and we’ll attended event. LESS

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    RunningMon Jun 26, 2022 at 4:59am

    Are you kidding me? I only verbally assaulted the idiotic race director who couldn’t point to the place on the registration form that showed where I agreed to wear a… MORE

    Are you kidding me? I only verbally assaulted the idiotic race director who couldn’t point to the place on the registration form that showed where I agreed to wear a mandatory race singlet. (Because it didn’t exist.) And no one escorted me out! I walked out on my own after videotaping you saying you would give me a refund. I wanted proof that someone had said that because clearly you can’t be trusted to do what you’ve promised. I also did not take anything from your aid stations, nor did I use your timing bib or chip. I ran parts of the course to cheer on friends that suffered through your horrible race. Prosecute me? Who are you kidding? This race, and you as race directors, are a joke. You’re humiliated, as you note in your reply above, and you should be. You embarrassed yourself time and again. LESS

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    RunningMon Jun 26, 2022 at 5:04am

    I also did not run in the Sebring Speedway. I ran out and back on the public roads. I did not take anything from your aid stations and did not… MORE

    I also did not run in the Sebring Speedway. I ran out and back on the public roads. I did not take anything from your aid stations and did not even take the timing chip when I left bib pickup. Not only are you incompetent, you are blatant liars. Attempting to smear me (I like how you included my full name in your reply) shows how desperate you are to make up for the disaster of a race you put on. LESS

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