Tom Naiman's Staging Area

A nice race and course. The final few miles are a nice run on a shaded , paved trail of Loantaka Park.
I had not run this race in a few years.
The race is well organized, six pacer groups were offered, local police do a great job with traffic on the main roads and the path out of the woods and to the finish was blocked off (which hadn’t been years ago when I last ran it, allowing spectators to stand in the path, blocking your run as they looked for their runners). Glad to see this change had been made.
It was a warm day for the race and it appeared that they were running out of water for the finishers.
The race finishers’ medal is very nice, and large. When picking up the race bid, the ‘technical’ shirt I received was an orange shirt, more of a t-shirt material than a race technical shirt. There were blue and green shirts in boxes also. I did not get a chance to ask, but figured they may have been for the relay race teams. I saw the green and blue shirts being worn by runners of the full marathon, and they were more of a technical/wicking shirt than the orange one that I received. I didn’t register late either.

My race time would have been better had I not had tried running a pace that I knew I had not trained to maintain for the full distance. I need to be more aware of my limitations and race for what I trained to do.

The race director did an incredible job with this small race coming out of COVID restrictions. It was organized and run very well.
The race had some wonderful scenery of the bay and some parkland.

Plenty of aid stations and a nice size finisher’s medal.
The course this year was a double loop. Seeing the several hills for a second time made them a little easier.
The pacing teams were awesome.

This was my second running of the Chicago marathon. Even in the rain at the start, the crowd support along the course was fantastic.
The Expo is huge, as it needs to be for a large race, the Nike march is overpriced.

course was a double loop, fairly tough hill.
Nice donut finisher’s medal.
Large Cupcakes for the finishers was a nice touch.
very cool mugs for age group winners. I am jealous and constantly eyeing up my son’s mug.

This was my very first marathon.
The start was cool as it had us running from the Monmouth Racetrack. The course was primarily flat as it made its way to the shore and the crowd support was awesome. After the half-marathon runner split off, it felt very lonely, especially running past the mansions of Deal where there was almost nobody out to cheer you on. Hitting Asbury Park and running on the boardwalk was great and the shore breezes were a welcome relief.
The long sleeve race shirt was nice and the race medal was a good size.