This was my first marathon. Great organization and beautiful course. Majority of the race is on the lake. Very scenic. You should try this one at least once. I will do this one again.

I just ran the 2006 Toronto Waterfront Marathon. The course is very flat with a couple of very small hills. There are lots of aid stations and some good entertainment at various points along the course. Long stretches of the course have no fan support due to there being no nearby residential areas, but where the fans were they were very vocal and support. The three different out-and-backs get a little boring, but overall the scenery is pleasant (except for the little stretch through an industrial area). Lots of fluids and Mylar blankets at the finish line. I was very disappointed by choice of a bagel, apple or banana for food at the end of the race. With a name like Scotiabank sponsoring the race in a big city like Toronto, I expected a much better selection. Overall I would recommend this race if you are looking to set a PB.

A great day for a marathon. The rain never materialized and the conditions (a bit of wind) were great for running. I liked the course changes, and the organization was great. It was fun having everyone at the same start.... Volunteers were awesome - very encouraging and enthusiastic.

See you next year.

Having an earlier start option was great; we were able to avoid the heat (although it turned out to be not that bad). Lots of water and Gatorade, well supported drink stations, added bonus of offers of power gels (many marathons don't provide these). The bands were fantastic, especially the drum band under the highway. Even the final photo captured all 3 of us together, which is what we had hoped for. In past marathons, my running partner and I have been 'spliced' even though we joined our hands and raised them as we crossed the line. Thank you for a fun experience!

I really enjoyed this marathon. It was my first, and I think it is a great first marathon. My ONLY negative comment is that I trained in miles, and the course is marked only in KM. If you are coming from miles make sure you know your splits/times in KM!!!!!! That messed up everyone in my group.

I helped organize a trip to this marathon after meeting with the race director, Alan Brookes, at the London Marathon expo. As a result, seven of us from Ulverston and the Hoad Hill Harriers club came across the Atlantic for the first time. The flight/hotel package was exceptional, not only for price, but also for quality; it certainly made our stay very enjoyable. The race was very well organized, being a veteran of 13 marathons now; entry was easy, race instructions very clear on the net, the organization of being met and taken to the race start and baggage area was slick, and the race expo was efficient in its registration procedures. The only concern I had was the technical t-shirt available for the women was amazingly small, even in the large size, and I felt not of the same durable quality of the men's.

Race-day was hot and the availability of refreshments was more than adequate and plentiful. The snacks at the end helped immediate refuelling.

The presentations were great; never had the chance to see the awarding of prizes before. (I must be running faster.)

So thank you Alan, Jenny and John Bingham for making us all so very welcome and I hope we shall return very soon to Canada; we were very impressed with its friendliness, politeness, cleanliness and liberal way of life.

I really liked running the course in the city. However, the middle seemed to drag. Running along the water and back into the city was a little boring. All in all, it was a great first marathon and I really thought it was well organized. I could not find a pace runner for 3:40 so I ran with the 3:30 pace group.

The personalized bib number made a huge difference. The crowd and other runners were encouraging us by calling our own name...that was GREAT! It gave me more energy and in the last kilometers it made me smile; I just loved it! Everyone was pleased with it; I hope that other races will use it as well.

Raucous, well-funded, and rather outré - this was my initial impression of the STWM from their website and printed collateral. I mean, if you see a rather butch, tattooed lady waving her arms at you every time you surf into the website, and you know the marathon is being sponsored by the Bank of Nova Scotia, and the website design is the visual equivalent of Times Square - well, you assume the race is going to be out of the ordinary, right?

Anyway, I did, but I was wrong. It was a humdrum affair on a duller-than-dirt course. Nearly a third of the route was an out-and-back along a marshy spit of land far, far from the hubbub of downtown Toronto. And by the way, there is no hubbub in downtown Toronto, not on a Sunday anyway.

The pasta dinner, at C$25, was simply a ripoff. I signed up for the first seating (4:30) but in the end there was no first seating; or rather, the 4:30 seating became allocated to the Team in Training diners (who from the looks of 'em like to eat early and often). I got squeezed in with the 6:00 pm crowd, and had to stand in line for 35 minutes. Long before I got to the steam table, most of the other diners had already finished and were hanging around to listen to the guest speaker, John 'The Penguin' Bingham. The kitchen kept running out of pasta and salads, stopping the queue for another ten minutes while they cooked up some more. Fortunately, by the time I got my food a few of the diners got tired of waiting for the speaker, and cleared out... meaning there was at last a place for me to sit. The pasta was excellent; too bad I was unable to get a second helping.

One can't complain about Torontonians, though: nice, unpretentious and helpful people, if a trifle over-surprised to learn that there is a marathon going on (can you imagine this in London or New York?). Just like Ottawans, only there are more of 'em and they have a subway that scoots you around in a jiff.

I knocked a very few minutes off my last marathon time (Ottawa, May '05), but Ottawa was much better.

Not exactly as advertised! Toronto is a great city and I love it but will not run this one again. Ugly out-and-back course with most of it in a barren part of the city. The only people were at the water stations and some of the promised cheering stations didn't even exist. Surely, Toronto has more to offer the marathoner than this loop course.