Riya Young's Staging Area

My first time running Sydney Marathon.
I have run over 75 marathons it the past 14 years, including 13 Bostons, 4 NYC, 2 Londons, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo (next year), and many US full marathons with times of 3:21-3:50 in the past, but slowed down to 4:00-5:00 this past year due to new job and no training.
I’ve visited Sydney a few times and love the city. Great for hosting an Abbott World Marathon Major as they are a Candidate Race.
Even though Sydney Marathon has grown a lot locally, there’s a lot of improvements to work on to be a WMM. The logistics and support here was more like a Rock n Roll Half Marathon race in the US, not a World Major. My feedback for the race organizers:
– Sydney is a wonderful city to host a WMM – very international, lots of hotels, extensive and easy public transport, very modern, very friendly and safe.
– Course is beautiful, especially in the 1st half and finish. The section around Centennial Park is a bit boring with lots of out-and-backs to make the distance.
– Parts of the course need larger roads. Some streets are narrow 1-lane each way (with all the out-and-backs), and runners were squeezed.
– Expo was nice but small. Inconvenient location this year with runners needing to take a train plus a shuttle bus, and shuttles were infrequent with long lines.
– Expo needs more staffing. e.g. the ASICS store checkout (main sponsor) had just 3 registers, compared to 30-40 at the other majors.
– Expo had no Info/Solutions desk or was hard to find. I was asking around if runners get a race shirt at the Expo and no one knew the answer.
– Expo’s custom imprinting on store items was nice but understaffed. Just 2 machines with long lines, and staff was dealing with other issues 50% of the time instead of just running the machines.
– Participant Guide (souvenir book with all the ads and all the logistics details) was nice but online only, NOT in a PDF format. Need to zoom in to see details, and every time you change pages, it would automatically zoom out again. Awkward to find needed info.
– The Marathon and 10K courses finished at the Opera House, wonderful location! The Half Marathon and 3.5K courses finished 500m up the street, not so exciting, sad for them.
– All courses started at Bradford Park, under the north side of the Harbour Bridge. The only way for everyone to get here was by train, exiting at the Milsons Point station next door, and walk down. Great for races with 40,000 registered. Not enough space in the park (let alone the port-a-potties), corrals, and train platform and exits to clear everyone out safely, with big backups on the platforms and incoming trains. The other Majors have at least 3-4X the space at their Start Villages.
– Finish Village in the Botanical Gardens next to the Opera House is nice but could be spaced out better. T-shirts, electrolytes, bananas were all placed close to each other (all within 50m) with minimal staffing, so huge crowd and bottleneck there at entrance to Garden. Bag check was spaced out further away, well placed.
– Race course was beautiful along the water and city streets. Not so many spectators, and it didn’t pass through many neighborhoods.
– Biggest issue was low staffing of aid station volunteers, and aid stations too far apart (first one at 5K) and every 2.5K after that. For this hot day (and for a Major) need twice as frequent aid stations.
– Aid station staffing was low. Due to forecasted heat wave, more water was delivered, but not enough staff were putting out cups and filling cups. At one station, only 10 staff, and 3-4 staff were putting out cups, and 3-4 staff were pouring from pitches, with big crowd of runners waiting for cups and water.
Pardon all the criticism, but I’ll be sending this feedback to the Post-Race survey. I hope Sydney will grow up fast to be a WMM Major soon.
I know many of my runner friends are considering going to the Abbott WMM Age Group Championship at next year’s Sydney, including myself, so heads up on some potential issues, and hopefully improvements next year as well.