Daisuke Matsuo's Staging Area

This is my second time running this awesome half marathon, and I am very thankful for the racerave crew for the opportunity! The race was pretty much the same as last year, only difference I noticed from a production standpoint was that this year there were no pacers. I didn’t see any pacers, which wasn’t a big deal to me. It was another hot day, just like last year and one of the things I love about this race is the 6 am start! I wish more races started at 6 am! It gives a slower runner like me to go back to the hotel, shower, and eat brunch with the family before checking out the hotel. Last year, I was so exhausted that walked up the entire hospital hill. It didn’t sit well with me, so I was determined to make sure I dominate the hospital hill this year! I ran up the entire climb all the way to the finish line!

I ran the 1 miler with my son. The race was entirely in centennial Park. My watch had the finish line at 0.93 miles. My sister in law ran the 5k, her watch had the 5k course at 2.93 miles. They gave you a shirt and medal.

I have had the BIH half on my radar for many many years but it was always on the weekend that I had to report to National Guard or away for other military duties. This year we finally buckled down, took off work on Friday and decided to experience BIH the proper way by doing the fire company challenge (5k on Friday evening, half marathon on Saturday morning). Drove into Bird in hand around 2 pm, picked up the bib at the tent, walked around some local shops. We ran the 5k, which was not that hilly, but my wife was pushing our 6 month old in a jogger and parts of the course is on grass which was a bit bumpy and challenging. So many Amish people running, so many kind people. Free s’mores party and bonfire, my 7 year old son had blast. One advice to everyone, all the local restaurants close around 7 pm here, so plan accordingly if you are planning on running the 5k. Getting dinner after the race can be challenging.

I realize that most folks on this site are running long distance races primarily, but I wanted to share some smaller lowkey local races. My 6 year old son is starting to show some interest in running and I love these small lowkey races for him. He doesn’t get intimidated by the big field at these small local races.
There are not that many 1 mile races in Baltimore regions, mostly 1 mile fun walk/run that are not timed.
The race is put on by Annapolis Striders, they put together some of my favorite local races such as Annapolis 10 miler, B&A trail half marathon. I would join this club except they are a bit far from me so I run with Baltimore Road Runners Club.
This race is held at Severna Park High School track, ample parking spaces, race day packet pickup only. They do have bathrooms available, real bathrooms not Porta pot. The race started exactly at 8 am with the youth heat. Followed by adult heats from slower expected finish time to the fastest heat going last.
I do believe they have age group awards, my son and I are not fast enough to win but for those that are interested in awards.

My son and I had a great time, I enjoy watching my son giving his all during races.

I drove to Fredericksburg from Baltimore, about 2 hours drive. The expo was at the Fredericksburg convention center, nice ample parking spaces. Picked bib and shirt, took some pictures and out of there within 15 minutes. We stayed at the Best Western which was about 2 miles from the start/finish line. I brought down my bicycle with me to the trip, just rode my bike to the start from the hotel. The race was midsize, about 5,000 runners for the half. Nice scenery, Marines everywhere, volunteer were great. Course was scenic with many rolling hills. The hospital hill at mile 11 is as advertised. I really enjoyed this race, I have ran a total of 11 half marathons and I would say this was my favorite so far. I would recommend this race to anyone.

Full disclosure, they changed the race from an 8 miler to a 10k shortly after publishing. So I ran the 10 k not 8 miler. They also had a 5 k for those interested in shorter distance. The race starts at the Guinness brewery, you walk about .5 miles of untimed distance to the entrance of Patapsco park where the timing starts. The entire race was paved, nice scenery. It was a misty rainy morning and I felt like I was running in a rainforest with so much greenery around. So therapeutic. Some minor rolling hills but not hilly at all. After the race, walk back to the brewery for 2 pints of beer. They did not have finisher medals like they advertised, but I did hear the DJ announce that they will be mailing them out. Parking at brewery is tight consider carpooling or go extra early.

I received notification from Tokyo Marathon that I got accepted by lottery entry! I think it was July or August of 2024 that I got the email. But there was only 1 problem, my wife’s due date was February 2025. I ALWAYS travel with my family to marathons. My wife always wanted to go to Tokyo. I was originally planning on deferring the entry, however I learned that Tokyo doesn’t allow for deferment unless you are female runner and pregnant. So I was really torn now, I went back and forth but my told me to just go to Tokyo and run the race by myself. I booked a trip to Japan for 1 week, with the main agenda of running the marathon and seeing a few of my relatives and close friends and coming back.
I flew into Haneda airport which I prefer over Narita just because it’s a heck of a lot closer to Tokyo. I ended up staying at my brother’s house in Yokohama so I really can’t give any advice as far as hotel options and where to stay. I flew into on Thursday, reached my brother’s house late Thursday and had dinner. On Friday, I went to the Expo which was held at Tokyo Big Sight, which is like a huge convention hall. It has its own dedicated train stop, as soon as you hop out of the station you will see Tokyo Marathon volunteers wearing blue jacket guiding you to the entrance, it really is fool proof. The Japanese folks are meticulously organized and it shows. I went to the expo, they open at 10 am, I think I got there around noon on Friday and it wasn’t bad. The line to pickup the bib had maybe 6 people ahead of me. Bring your runner registration and your passport. They will give you a bib and wristband. Do not take off the wristband until you are finished with the entire race. After the bib pick up, you pick up your pre-purchased shirt/singlet if you were lucky enough to buy it before it sold out. O lines at all for that part. Then you enter the vendor and photo op area of expo. There really was no huge lines, I heard that the ASICS store had 1 hour wait to get in but I wasn’t interested so I would not be able able to confirm if that is factual or not. I thought the expo was we organized and I had great experience, easy access from train station.
Race day: I usually don’t sleep too well on marathon days but I woke up around 3 am, I don’t know if it was due to jet lag or being anxious or both. I think I headed for the train around 6 am, again I stayed in Yokohama so if you stay in Tokyo, I am sure you don’t have to leave that early. My brother recommended that I get off at Nishi-shinjyuku station as it is a much shorter walk, and he was right. Again, as soon as you get off the train you will see volunteers wearing blue jackets guiding you which way to go. I walked maybe 5 minutes and went through the gate and security check. Dropped off my bag check. Everything was smooth as can be. The race started promptly at 9:10 am. I was In corral D, and I was close enough to see the confetti and the opening ceremony which was pretty cool. Now one warning about Tokyo is that they have STRICT cutoff points, they will enforce it. All in all 9 cutoff points. The time for the cutoff points are set by guntime, so I was a bit worried because I was in Corral D so I expected to cross the start line 30 to 45 minutes after the gun, but in actuality I started 4 minutes after the gun. So you move pretty quickly at the start, I am not sure how many corrals there were but I would imagine that last corral probably started 10 to 15 minutes after the gun. I was never close to being cutoff and I am a pretty darn slow runner. However, the course itself has a lot of double backs and I saw some people getting cutoff at the checkpoint which always gives me an awful feeling. I can’t imagine traveling to Tokyo and being cutoff. I understand it’s a huge city and they have to open the roads back up but I hope they change it in the future. The course is flat, many of the landmarks such as Tokyo sky tree and Asakusa are passed which is pretty cool. The volunteers are just down right awesome, so energetic I just can’t say enough wonderful things about them. It gives me a smile every time I saw an old Japanese grandma yelling as loud as she could “Fight”, “Gambatte” with a fist pump. The only issue I had, and it was a pretty big issue to me were the water stations. The last 5 or 6 water stations ran out of water, or they consolidated the tables to 1 or 2 which created a big crowd. It was hot race day, 68 degrees. They had each water stations numbered, the last number on your bib is the designated water stations they wanted you to hit up. I was number 2, so the first few stations I went to table 2, no issues. Then slowly but surely I got to the water stations and the table for number 2 was already packed up and broken down. Now like I said, I am a pretty slow runner but there had to have been at least another hour of runners behind me, I can only imagine what they had to go through towards the end. Tokyo being a world major, this was pretty disappointing to me. I almost gave 3 shoes but in my opinion it gets 3.5 shoes and rounded up just because how wonderful the volunteers were and the feast of the race being so organized. After the race you get a medal and the iconic terry clothe gown! I met up with my family at Tokyo station, my brother booked us a bullet train ticket back to Yokohama, which ended up being about 10 minutes train ride but I felt like VIP riding in a Shinkansen after the race hahahaha. Overall it was great experience and I am glad I made the choice to run the marathon.

I highly recommend taking the metro to the Expo. The stadium-armory station puts you literally at the doorstep of expo. Decent expo got lots of free swags, no line at all! I parked at the fashion city mall, which is 1/2 mile from start. Beware of road closures, the main road to the pentagon is blocked for traffic so get there early. Decent course, no real hills. Overall, a decent race but tough logistics. Worth doing once, not sure if i will do it again.

My second year in a row, always hot and humid. For $35, it’s the best way to start your July 4th holiday! I am going to keep running this race every July 4th!

I was stationed in Ft Sill, OK for 3 week training. Just so happens that there was a 5k while I was there. The MWR for Ft Sill did a phenomenal job, I have ran a few 5k in my local base and it is nowhere near quality of this one. The shirt is good quality, the medal is awesome, raising money to support the family of the fallen. The course is loop around the golf course on post. Some minor hills, not a killer.

We flew into CDG airport on Friday morning, and went straight to the expo with our luggage and all. Please keep in mind the CDG airport is actually pretty far from Paris city center, it will take you an hour by train at least. Download the Paris Taxi app, they use that instead of Uber and it’s pretty easy to use as well. The expo had a luggage check which was awesome, so we didn’t have to walk around the expo with our luggage. BIB pickup was smooth, they had booth set up, just look up your bib number and go to the assigned booth, maybe 1 or 2 people in line, breeze. Then we walked around, the usual massive wall with all the names of the participants, other pictures opportunities, massive vendors area. We are from the USA and we saw runnning brands that we don’t see in the USA. I guess the European brand doesn’t market the USA region. So it was pretty neat to see new brands. My 5 year old son ran the Maratoons 400 meter run the next day. It was cute, pretty well organized.
Race report: The start and finish line are close to one another but it is not exactly the same. This is a huge marathon, I think 2024 had 52,000 finishers. We just followed the crowd off the train to the bag drop, which is at the finish line NOT the start line. Then get into your assigned corral. The scenery and crowd were awesome! Only a small patch of area that I would say were boring, other than that people yelling “ Allez Allez” from both sides of the street at all times. A few areas with cobblestone. It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be but when I was exhausted towards the finish and had to run the last few km on cobblestone, it added a new dimension to the experience. Cross the finish line, pickup the medal and finisher T shirt. I really really love the simplicity of the medal and T shirt design. The medal was a ring design, designed to commemorate the Paris 2024 Olympic. T shirt had no adds or sponsorship on them, high quality shirt from ASICS. We got or baggage and headed back to our Air Bnb. Please keep in mind that many businesses our closed on Sunday. Including grocery stores, restaurants and cafes. I highly recommend planning a head and making a reservation for a place to eat after the race a head of time as this race on a Sunday and it could be challenging if you are traveling with a large group.

Over all awesome awesome race! A few very minor details to work on for future.
1. Need more volunteers in the race morning. I wish there were more volunteers that could help direct us to bag check, start line, etc. 52,000 runners all roaming around not knowing which way to go was not a plus.
2. The Km markers were patchy. It was every 2 km in the beginning, then I swear it disappeared. There were only markers for major km like 20, 30, etc. my family planned to meet me around km 16, I had no way of seeing them.
3. There were few area closer to the finish where the crowd were into the street. They were separated by a single rope from the runners. We really appreciate the crowd support but it caused an already narrow street to become congested and bottleneck situation. Runners had to slow down.

I have lived and gone to school right down the street from Arbutus for many years and for some reason never ran this race until 2023. Great organization, for the price you get your money’s worth. I think the fee was $35, you get a t-shirt and a very hilly and humid 10k course! It is a loop course, takes you around Arbutus neighborhood and main business district. I am already registered again for the next year! This might become my new July 4th tradition!

Much of the race is on a trail, most of it was packed gravel surface. Out and back a long a river. Scenery doesn’t change for 90% of the course which can get a bit boring. The packet pick up and start was breeze. Overall just an average experience.

The race course has LOTS of double backs. I would prefer point to point or a loop but overall you get to see a lot of what Philly has to offer.

I love running Chicago, I would say the logistics as compared to New York marathon was waaaay easier. I would still recommend looking for a hotel early, as soon as you get the lottery notification start looking for a hotel early eat the start as they are hard to come by.

I love this race, it’s a bit of a drive coming in from Baltimore but I love it so much that I ran it 2 years now. Well organized, scenic, great time!

One of the largest 5k in Baltimore, I highly recommend taking the train or light rail as parking is a bit of hassle. Finish at the power plant and have a beer with your buds! Nice flat course!

I have ran on NCR plenty of times, it’s my go to route for a long run as there are no cars or traffic lights. This race very low key but well organized. You get the nicest blanket, a thick blanket not a flimsy one when you finish.