City to Surf Marathon

[pete4863]

As i was unable to run the marathon due to injury i am interested to find out what runners thought about the run. ie how hard was the course?; were there enough drink stops? any other issues?
One thing that struck me as a spectator was just how unbelievably fast the front runners were going - amazing

[epi]

Hi Pete,

There is alot of discussion on the race on Coolrunning.

From my point of view it was a great course. Of course it was hilly in the back half, but not ridiculously so.

Drink stations were every 2.5k or so and for most of the race there was no problem getting free access to water or powerade (all blue). There were Gu's on 4 stations I think

The main negative issues from people were twofold:

1. Lack of km markers. There were quite a few markers in the first half - big flags on the side of the road and if you were observant small marks on the road. In the second half there were pretty much none that I noticed. Having said that, I had a GPS watch and didn't need the markers.

2. Traffic management. There were two sections where marathon runners were mixed in with 12k runners (unless you were a sub 2:30 runner). This caused 2 problems - firstly the need to weave in and out of traffic. The only advantage of this for me was it took my mind off being 34-38k through a marathon. The second issue was that in this section access to drinks was difficult as you would be lining up with hundreds of 12k competitors for water as opposed to the handful of marathon runners near you.

Traffic management was clearly an issue given that the leading female runner went the wrong way and was made to do a further loop at the finish.

These issues are fixable, so hopefully next year we are left with a great course better organised. Plenty of people seemed to run PBs so the course can't have been too slow.

Epi

[duffer]

One other thing...
Don't believe the guy on the corner of Rochdale Rd and West Coast Hwy when he tells you it is all downhill to the finish.

[pete4863]

Yeah I know I lied but at that stage of the run I bet that made everyone feel better and spurred people on to the finish line!! Right??