This was my first Full Marathon. The course is magnificent taking you from Estes Park, CO down to Loveland, CO along the Big Thompson River. Scenery is breath taking. The … MORE
This was my first Full Marathon. The course is magnificent taking you from Estes Park, CO down to Loveland, CO along the Big Thompson River. Scenery is breath taking. The course is mainly downhill except for the last 4 miles that become mainly uphill. Save strength for the uphill.
I was not impressed with race organization as they ran out of both race shirts before the race and then medals during the race. I had to wait 2 weeks for a race shirt and almost 2 months for my finisher medal.
If the run is all you’re interested in, this is a must-run for the scenery alone.
Please login to reply to this review.
Beautiful course but so-so organization
This was my first Full Marathon. The course is magnificent taking you from Estes Park, CO down to Loveland, CO along the Big Thompson River. Scenery is breath taking. The … MORE
This was my first Full Marathon. The course is magnificent taking you from Estes Park, CO down to Loveland, CO along the Big Thompson River. Scenery is breath taking. The course is mainly downhill except for the last 4 miles that become mainly uphill. Save strength for the uphill.
I was not impressed with race organization as they ran out of both race shirts before the race and then medals during the race. I had to wait 2 weeks for a race shirt and almost 2 months for my finisher medal.
If the run is all you’re interested in, this is a must-run for the scenery alone.
Loved it - but a tough last 6 miles!
Now that I've ran almost all of the big Colorado road races, I'd say this is one of my absolute favorites. A lot of that probably has to do with … MORE
Now that I’ve ran almost all of the big Colorado road races, I’d say this is one of my absolute favorites. A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that I love Estes Park, but this was also just a really well organized, small, low-key event that I really enjoyed. The first 20 miles are absolutely stunning as well as nice and cool since you’re in Big Thompson Canyon. I really struggled on the last 6 though, as your toughest miles mentally are also your toughest miles physically – there are some BIG hills during these last few miles (for the first time all course), AND the course is all exposed – so if it’s hot out (which it was in 2015), then it feels EXTRA hot. But aside from that, I really did enjoy this. The shirts are well made and the finisher’s medals are handmade and very unique – I really liked them. Because it is a smaller race, they do not close off the road and just cone the shoulder for runners – this didn’t seem to be much of an issue, but if it were to get much bigger it could be. The race does start in the dark, but it lightens up in about 2 miles and I did not need a headlamp – I was VERY grateful for the early 6am start time considering how hot the ending was!