I completed 16 marathons prior to this in Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, DC, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, Olympia and other cities. Some were very well organized and others were pitiful. I rate this as one of the best organized of the marathons I've run; others should take lessons. The city was well informed and supportive. The volunteers and police were phenomenal. There was still food and water at the end for the slower runners, which is not always the case. Although I ran the full marathon, I thought that the relay exchange areas were well marked and managed. I also enjoyed talking with runners who were doing the relay and the half marathon along the same route. I will encourage others to run this marathon. I loved that endurance Gatorade was the energy drink as I think it is the absolute best for slower runners like me. :) Although the expo seemed small, I thought that it too was well run and had the essential items and information available for most runners.

The course was somewhat challenging, especially the long gradual hills into the wind during the latter part of the race. However, you did get it back with gradual downhills during the last couple of miles when you needed it most. At around a 3:20 pace, I met the half-marathon leaders at the merge, which I wasn't happy about at first, as I was getting passed by many of them. However, I started to feel like they were pulling me along and they even offered words of encouragement to those of us with "full" marathon signs on our back - much appreciated. Great police, fire department and volunteer support along the way too. Spent the weekend in Baltimore with the family and we really enjoyed our visit to what we found to be a very friendly city. We'll do this again next year.

First of all, to the runner who said that that Fort McHenry was removed so the Under Armour headquarters could be added, read the course info book: the fort was removed because of construction on the sea wall.

I am a slow runner, so I didn't get caught up in the full/half problems. This course is a tough one, so prepare for hills. The packet pick up and expo were well organized. I got my packet and shirt and goody bag with no problem, and having this at the Ravens Stadium made it convenient for us out-of-towners. (The race was within walking distance of the hotels.)

I will be back.

This was my 17th marathon run. Baltimore compared its course to Boston but I thought it was tougher. There was no Heartbreak Hill, but the hills never ended. The merge with the half at mile 16 was tough - dodging runners to stay on your pace was difficult. The young kids cheering on the course were great, as were the gummy bears and Under Armour music. Crowds are sparse - people were just waking up and sitting on their stoops. The Inner Harbor was fun for my family and the festival after was fun for them. I was fighting off nausea and the carnival smells didn't help, but that's just me. I couldn't help the rain, but it made for slick roads and I saw eight people crash with road rash. Why wear a "Full" or "Relay" sign on your back when thousands of half-marathoners merge with you at mile 16? It was a quiet course most of the way. And boy oh boy, after mile 25, it was the longest finish ever! If I lived locally, I'd probably do it again....

The Expo: There was nowhere to get a drink - just a massive sales pitch for vendors and little else going on. A and T Stadium should have been the best Expo venue ever.

The Course: What hills? Every city has hills and these ones were fine; short and you get to go downhill on the way back, so I'm fine with the mostly flat course. The temperature was about right for marathon-running. They should have included Fort McHenry, as it is beautiful down there and adds a historical element to the town.

Spectators: They were awesome when downtown, but invisible and silent in the outback.

A shared meeting area after the finish is fine but it needed to be bigger and the lines for the free Bud Light and Phillips soup were just far too long for somebody suffering from total exhaustion!

All that said, I got a new PB by over seven minutes (4:36), so I reckon that I might be back one day.

This was my first Baltimore Marathon and I was generally pleased with its execution. The course was challenging (topographically speaking, of course) and although we ran through some low-income parts of town, there were no jeers - only cheers that I think I appreciated more than any others. I did pity, however, the scores of vehicles that I saw stuck in massive jams perpendicular to the course - apparently caught unaware of road closures. Thank you to the Baltimore Police for holding them back!! Water stations were fine - more than fine, really - but I would have liked more timing pieces on the course. Under Armour was a great sponsor - awesome shirt. The relay exchange areas offered an unexpected motivational lift. Luckily I got past the half-marathon starting line before they began, so I was spared a lot of the merge issues that I feared. Separate finish lanes and lines (last 1.2 miles??) for marathoners and half-marathoners would have been nice. These are small details - I'll be back in 2010!

Hotel(s): Plentiful, convenient, priced right.

Transportation: Choose a hotel in walking distance, but the parking at the expo was extremely cheap/convenient.

Expo: Small for a race of this size, with the standard fare. Nothing special! New recycled t-shirt material was nice, but it sticks to the body when sweating. I won't use it to work out.

Start: Easy and convenient due to the small size of the event.

Course: It features an easy opening 16 miles despite first three miles climbing. There were picturesque areas, and I always had other runners with me. At the 16-mile point, the half marathoners converged on the same course. That's a HUGE mistake for the organizers! It REALLY messes up goal-oriented runners (not the elites though), and it slows the pace considerably weaving through traffic at that point of a race. For example, a four-hour marathoner would be converging with two-and-a-half-hour half-marathoners, and spend the next 10 miles passing those folks wasting energy moving laterally while climbing for 6 of those miles. Hills on that portion are surprisingly tough, even for someone trained on hills. I was surprised, as the climbs are not rewarded with downhills - there were only flats before the next climb. I managed a PR despite the course, but because of training.

Aid Stations: Well stocked with Gatorade Endurance and H2O. I never take on-course food, but there were chips, bananas, Power Gels (2), etc. The drink was not in a consistent order, which could be confusing.

Finish Area: It was fun to come through Camden Yards.

Fan Support: Average. Richmond/MCM blow it away though for this.

Celebration Village: Chaos! The family reunion zone was very poorly marked and hard to link up as the spectators could not get close to the finish line. The food was the same food as they had on the course, which is not what you want to see at the finish line. We need pizza or something more substantial.

Signage: Poor! Need higher/more visible signage for ALL things. Mile markers, H2O points, relay zone, bathroom locations, family link up, etc. and there need to be warning signs for each a short distance in front so runners can prepare what side of road to be on.

Recommendation: Having only run this race, MCM, and Baltimore, I'd rank this one last. Richmond would be first for size, crowds, logistics, and course. This is last because of the course and logistics.

Great expo - easy to get in, through, around, and out. I love the shirt, and the crab on the medal is a cool touch.

The course was beautiful; the seedy industrial parts that you usually hit around mile 23 when you hate everyone came earlier, when you were still optimistic and happy. Spectators were loud and all over the place. The lake at mile 20 was a welcome respite in the midst of a seven-mile climb. The downhill back towards the line and the raucous crowd near Camden Yards made for a memorable ending.

I'm on my way through the 50 states (12 marathons in 11 states so far), so it will be a while before I think about a Maryland race again, but if I were a local, I'd run this every year. Friendly crowd, great organization, friendly runners. I raised money for the Ulman Fund for Cancer Research, and I'd recommend that others find a great charity to help for the 2010 Baltimore Running Festival.

This was an interesting race. First, the logistics are pretty good. You can get good flights into and out of BWI, and then there's the light rail that takes you right from the baggage claim at the airport to the expo for $1.60! There are plenty of hotels near the expo and race start/finish, and lots of food options. The expo is kind of "sprawling" and forced you to navigate around vendors to get the basic race items (bib, shirt, etc.), but I guess that was nice for those who wanted to shop. The shirts ran more true-to-size than I expected for Under Armour, but I was able to "trade down" to the right size.

Race morning brought humidity and sprinkles of rain here and there. While it wasn't "hot," I was comfortable in shorts and singlet while waiting (which I knew meant I'd feel the heat on the course). It was fun having photographers catching candid shots pre-race, and the REAL restrooms as part of the Baltimore Oriole stadium were more pleasant than the normal port-a-potties.

I expected the course to be more scenic, but it was basically urban areas with an occasional park and a loop around a small lake. There were some "interesting" portions on the race, when you loop around "downtown," and you see all of the half marathoners preparing for their 9:45 a.m. start (and frequently dashing across our course to get wherever they felt they needed to be). The loop toward Fort McHenry was a let down, since you didn't get to see really anything due to the construction and rerouting of the normal course. The half marathoners merged with the full at around the 16-mile mark. I felt both a shot of energy from them and then some frustration with the inevitable weaving around them over the last 6 miles. And some of the water stations couldn't keep up with the volumes of combined half and full marathoners. Several times I poured my own drink or grabbed a cup off the table (because there weren't enough volunteers to hand them out). Finally, there were the hills! I felt the hill in the first three miles and was fresh enough to conquer it, but it was the ones that just didn't stop in the last six miles that killed me. I usually like some hills to break things up, but these were relentless and right when you didn't need them.

The finish line was the worst part. Since I finished in a little over four hours, that meant I was finishing with the half marathoners at their 2:15 time (large numbers of people). It was a mass of humanity, with no separation between those running the half and the full. I was able to spot a volunteer near the middle in the finishing chute who had full marathon medals (in little plastic bags). The medal is nice, but you really had to have your wits about you and be looking for the correct medal and who had them. Then, I couldn't get out of the finishers' corral! The crowds were so big, I couldn't determine where the exit was and it was just a huge bottleneck. I finally ended up climbing UNDER the fencing to get out (very pitiful on tired legs that didn't work well) so I could rush to my hotel in order to make late checkout and catch my plane. Maybe this wasn't as much of a problem for the locals who just wanted to hang around and celebrate, but to me the congestion was just horrible.

So, there were some good points to the race. As always, the volunteers and spectators who showed up in spite of the "drizzly" weather were super! The hoopla at the start was exciting. If this is your first time visiting the Inner Harbor, that's fun. But I hope they continue to work on how to manage the full and half marathoners, and specifically the congestion at the finish.

The course was good, but it can be challenging if you're not prepared for hills. The scenery was nice, even through the rough neighborhoods.

Water stops were grossly undermanned, and could be improved if they were on both sides of the street when allowable. They were overcrowded with runners, especially when the half-marathoners joined the marathoners.

When the half- and full-marathoners converge, it is too hard to maintain a consistent pace when trying to weave in and out of people at mile 16.

I'm disappointed in the rules not being enforced about headphones. Once again, here's a marathon that states that no headphones are allowed but then allows them.