Robert Chalmers's Staging Area

I have run a number of Sydney marathons over the last 37 years and was eager to run 2023 to see how it has progressed in its quest to be a world major. In a nutshell I think it has many areas for improvement.
One had to attend the expo which was located in industrial area and not serviced by public transport – had to catch feeder buses from closest train stations and the feeder buses were a bit disjointed. The expo was big enough for me though very little promotional items available.
Everyone knows that Sydney has a lot to offer scenery wise, that is a given and a big plus. Sections of the course highlighted some of the scenic foreshore and of course crossing the harbour bridge but running multiple times around parts of Centennial Park and back and forth laneways before and after the park was mind numbing.
Access to the start area was chaotic with Milsons Point station unable to cope with the volume of people – big crushes to get off the actual platform and exiting the station.
Availability of portaloos at the start was very poor, I waited 35 minutes in queue. Was very crowded accessing the start area (large sections of the park from which the race started were barricaded off which made it difficult to move at times.
Organisers continue to have half marathon, plus this year 10k run, starting prior to the marathon which means the actual marathon didn’t start till 7:10am on a day with a forecast temp of 30 degrees Celsius. Many of the wave C runners didn’t start till about 7:40 or later (by which time a lot of the half marathon runners would have been able to finish and escape the heat) which meant they wouldn’t expect to finish till between 12 – 2pm in the hottest part of the day.
Spectators were fabulous compared to other Australian marathons but I can’t compare to other majors as haven’t done any of them.
Bands and singers on the course – great for some but I would prefer more portaloos at the start.
Finishing at the Opera House was great but having to do the Mrs Macquarie loop in the last 3 km was nasty for me with its hill.
Will I do it again – yes because I would like to see organisers improve on the offering.