Gripe # 1. At mile 25, when leaving the 2nd Street Bridge, the marathon runners were forced to negotiate crowds of mini-marathon walkers, an unexpected and unacceptable obstacle. The race director must have foreseen the consequences of this, which makes the decision to have the two races meet at that point supremely inept.

Gripe # 2. No gel packs on the course.

The course is chock-full of challenging hills and scenes of natural beauty. Other than my reservations about this event outlined above, I would recommend this marathon to anyone looking for an exacting but enjoyable 26.2 experience.

The good:
Good size expo, but not so nice for the half marathoners - they waited in two lines - one for their packet and another line for their shirt.
Full marathon tech shirt was nice, but black - not something I would wear again.
Busing to the start seemed to run very smoothly.
Nice course, with lots of hills throughout.
Spectators were great for the first 10 miles, but trailed off for the marathoners. Those who were out there were great!
Medal was okay.

The bad:
I saw only 4 or 5 mile markers. They had clocks along the course, but if they were associated with a mile marker, it was MIA.
Although the rain/nasty weather held off until late afternoon, it was very humid at the start. This was especially nasty since the first few miles ran through a park with virtually no air circulation due to the tree cover.

The ugly:
THE START. Most runners were divided into 3 corrals, depending on finish times for the half and full. Why the heck they didn't have a separate corral for walkers is beyond me. I was in Corral C (estimated 5:00 finish time), and dodged walkers doing both the half and full for the first couple of MILES. It took me 15:10 to get to the start line, and there were hundreds if not a couple of thousand runners behind me. Walkers in front of me were 4 abreast. Ridiculous.
There was not enough road at the start for the 15K entrants. A two-lane street is just not wide enough, and it got worse once you entered Iroquois Park.
PLASTIC CUPS and PLASTIC BOTTLES at the water stops. I saw only a couple of water stops that had normal paper cups. EVERY water stop had 8-ounce, capped, plastic bottles; 26.2 miles of empty plastic bottles lying on the side of the road is neither "green" nor pretty.
The finish: The post-race food was a block away, and then we had to walk another block BACK to the finish line because the road dead-ended.

I have done this race every year since its start (my hometown race). This was definitely the most challenging year from a course standpoint. It was nice not to have to run up Lexington Ave., but this was replaced by additional challenging hills in Cherokee Park. A more scenic route, but much tougher! I liked the downhill finish and the "scream teams," and suport staff are always great. Crowd support drops significantly after the break from the half marathon. More bands and scream teams on the second half of the course would be great, especially in Indiana, where there was almost no crowd support. The crowd that was out there offered great support as usual. Great run!

I had a blast! I ran the half last year and the full this year. I enjoyed the race, the city, and the people. A huge thanks to the marathon organizers, the spectators, the volunteers, and the police/EMS. I was surprised to see such a good spectator turn out for a day that started off rainy. Those who would criticize the spectators... keep in mind they aren't obligated to come and cheer for you. They choose to. Thanks to the people at the water stations. I didn't care if the water was in a bottle or a cup - I am just glad that you were there handing it out. I have seen some complaints about porta-potties. But there were 15,000 people plus spectators; there is no way to get enough porta-potties for everyone, so get over it. It is unrealistic to expect your own personal toilet every 100 yards.

The website explained everything in great detail, so with a little light reading, I had a good idea of the course layout, the location of the water stations, and the runners reunite area. I was able to plan my run accordingly. The course was great - very challenging, with lots of hills and nice scenery. Cherokee Park was a very nice area. I read some complaints about people walking down the street not involved in the race and some teens from a conference that was going on who weren't into the race. It would be hard to shut down the entire city for the race, so there are going to be other people there. Once you come to grips with the fact that not every citizen of Louiville cares if you are running a marathon, it is easier to see someone walking down the street indifferent to your running. The only problem (very minor) that I experienced was that the Asics pace team guy for the 4:30 group started walking at the 20-mile mark and was unable to continue at his designated pace. I went on and hit my mark anyway, so no harm was done. Overall, it was a great event in a great city. I would recommend it to anyone. I will definitely be back for more!

This was my first marathon, and I was not disappointed.

Positives:
1) Beautiful course.
2) Crowds were great when they were present.
3) Organizers seemed very on top of it.
4) Technical running shirts were very cool.
5) Beer at the finish line.
6) Cool finishing medal.

Negatives:
1) It seemed like carb replinishment stations (PowerAde/oranges) were few and far between, especially once marathoners break away from the mini runners.
2) Crowds were somewhat sparse during the second half of the marathon course.

Overall, great race. I will definitely consider running the race again.

This was race 69 for me and it is close to being a 5-star race. Course is average of the ones that I have run. Support along the course was very good. One general suggestion I have applies to other races I have done in the last couple of years. I traveled across the country to run the Kentucky Derby Race. Looking at the shirt (great artwork), Wal-Mart's name was larger than the name of the race. I appreciate Wal-Mart's support of the event, but I don't appreciate running 26.2 miles and being an advertisement for a sponsor with the name of the event so small that a person would have to be inches from the shirt to read it. Whew! I feel better having said that.

This was my first marathon. I have run 8 half-marathons and have volunteered at several marathons. The course was pretty and challenging. The crowds were great the first 10.5 miles. Then the marathoners split from the half-marathoners. The crowds were almost nonexistent until the final mile of the race. There were not enough water stops for the marathoners, especially in the later miles. The mile markers in the later miles seemed to be about a half-mile off. The last mile had way too many turns, and the finish area was confusing and made it hard for families to meet up directly afterward. Thank you to the people in Jeffersonville who had fresh fruit and water they were handing out from their home, and the guy around Cherokee park with a list of bib numbers and names - he called everyone by name and cheered them on. It was a great boost. Overall, not a bad race. Beautiful scenery and a nice medal.

This was number 18 for me. My time was just under 4 hours. I really enjoyed this race. The course was easy to navigate, with plenty of fluids, a although a little low on port-o-lets on the course, it was doable. I know the mini-marathon is the main attraction, but the marathon course was very beautiful, and fair. Yes, there were some hills, but it sure felt good to use other muscles from the long, flat running in the middle of the race. The expo was nice; the line to the buses moved quickly. The announcements about where to go after getting off of the buses (to the bag check and port-o-lets) were well done. The corrals worked well. I never felt lost. The spectators and volunteers were great, and traffic control was great. I would definitely recommend this marathon to anyone. Great job, Louisville!!!

The course was challenging, which is great! The downside of the new course is the added milage across the bridge in IN. This part of the course was very boring and had zero crowd support. I enjoy the scenery in the parks but the new start being closer to Iroquois Park did not provide enough time for the crowd to thin out before bottlenecking onto the park path. Also, the signage at the start was terrible. There were two people telling everyone where they were to go for the starting line and gear check, and if you didn't need to use the restroom before the race you would have missed any opportunity for water, as the only location was at the port-o-potties over behind the gear check. There should have been some information about the starting line arrangements in the packets we were given at check-in. The corrals were a mess; nobody knew where they were supposed to be and this added to the crowding and walkers being in the wrong location at the start. All of this was compounded as everyone converged on the park path into Iroquois.

Post-race was alright; the extended area allowed the crowd to thin as they had access to the refreshments, but at the same time the refreshments could have been located a little closer to the finish line.

If you're looking for a fun half-marathon and don't care about your pace/time, this one is for you.

But for those full marathoners who care about running a solid race (pace and time)... beware! Very difficult to do that in this one (course is challenging and organizers pushed the max number of people too high).

Some glaring problems that really should be addressed:
-lack of mile markers
-poor start area (and first 3 miles)... very clogged... simply cannot handle 15,000 runners.
-lack of port-o-potties
-sloping/pot-holed road in Indiana
-finish area very long... cannot exit

Other notes:
- 1,000 - 2,000 thousand full marathoners; 13,000 - 14,000 thousand half marathoners
- shirt design was poor
- expo, ho-hummmm
- no packet pick up on race day - if you're from out of town, you better plan accordingly!

Some pros;
- nice, challenging course (hills, bridge, Churchill Downs, parks, scenery)
- good number of water stations
- great volunteers
- nice medal

I'll keep an eye on this one to see if there are any changes before I try this one a third time.