This is a great destination marathon. I ran the full. This was my 12th marathon and I enjoyed it immensely. The expo, start and finish were a bit spread out, and they may want to consider having these areas closer for convenience purposes. However, I recommend the race. The course and spectators were great, and other than the expo, start and finish being pretty far from most of the hotels, the organization was great. The aid stations were wonderful and frequent. The medal is the most beautiful of all 12 full and 11 half medals that I own!!!

I did the full marathon and I thought that this was a great race. Some of the negative comments relating to the half marathon participants clogging up the course are probably related to the slower pace of many of the half participants. I ran an average of 8:30 miles and did not encounter any bottlenecks at all.

I thought that the cheering zone at mile 10.5 was great. It was loud and very inspiring. It made me think that this must be what its like to come down 1st Avenue in NY during the NYC Marathon. I wish that there were more spots like it in this race, but I considered it one of the highlights.

The first half of the course is more scenic than the second half, but it's still overall a very nice course. The bridge at mile 25.5 is a killer but there was a great atmosphere for the last mile to the finish line and the spectators "willed" you to the finish.

Overall, a great escape from New York in January.

I felt that this was a good marathon overall. The biggest issue I had was finding a parking spot at the expo. I really like the tech shirt - a nice change from the standard white. I thought the goody bag was lacking, containing mainly flyers and coupons. The vendors were as expected.

The course was decent, although the bridge/hill at mile 26 was not fun. There were plenty of port-a-potties along the course, and the water stations had plenty of water and Gatorade (and some had oranges and bananas). I thought the spectators were good and the scenery along the waterfront was a welcome distraction. There were only 2-3 miles where it seemed too quiet.

Biggest complaint was having to run with the half marathoners for the 1st 13 miles! The start was just too crowded and it didn't really thin out until the half split. About 12,000 runners finished the half but only 3,000 finish the full. With the hot and humid temps, being stuck in a corral with so many people wasn't fun. At least there was plenty of food at the finish and a great cheering section in the last mile. The medal is the coolest I've gotten to date.

All in all, I had a good experience .

Miami is full of beautiful people and the Miami Marathon was a terrific run. The course itself is very enjoyable, with a tour of South Beach in the first half being the highlight.

However, this is a race that needs to decide if it is a half or a full and not a hybrid. For those who run the full, the fun of the course is over at the halfway point and the roads are seemingly too narrow for 18,000 people to run a race. I can imagine that it was quite interesting for those who ran the half; however, they had to feel congested as well.

Suggestion: run the course the opposite direction and reward the marathoners with the South Beach tour at the end of the race. OR run two separate races.

Also, I do not enjoy spectators screaming in my ear while I run. This is not fan support; this is annoying! The "cheer-zone" around mile 10 was ridiculous!! My head was pounding by the time I made my way through that area. Not a pleasant experience.

With all of the heat and humidity, THANK YOU for the multiple water stations.

In summary, a decent race without much to see during the second half if you are a marathoner.

Boy, based on the comments, runners have become a pretty spoiled bunch.

This is an ideal destination race for someone from the Northeast to kick off the year. Did it last year and liked it. Came back and enjoyed it even more.

Everything is well done. From the packet pick-up (with little hassle) to the water and bananas just about every mile, to the tour of Miami and South Beach.

Yes, it was a shock to experience humidity at 6 a.m. So, I slowed my pace and had a fun and trouble-free morning.

And yes, best medal design around. Bottom line: the feel of a mid-sized event with the ING big event organization. Nice way to spend the last day of January.

I just did this marathon 2 days ago and I would have to say that I would do it again. The course was beautiful. You run through neat Miami neighborhoods by the breathtaking ocean. It was well organized and my husband was able to drop me off by car pretty much at the starting line without any trouble at all. It is a flat course with a few hills only on the bridges that cross the water. My pace team leaders - Luis and Michelle - were fantastic. They really helped me keep up my pace. The only negative to this race was that it was 75 degrees and humid at the start. They did have plenty of drinks and the aid stations were frequent.

The final of my three January Marathons.

With so many marathons in our home state and with my time limited to run just one marathon in FL this year, I decided on Miami. I had heard great things about it, and it is an easy down-and-back over-nighter.

Let me start with the three best points. The finisher's medal is the coolest medal of the 21 marathon medals hanging on my wall. It is large, and has two center spinners, complete with a rotating palm tree. The medal is gold, with blue and orange accents, with a cool blue and orange ribbon. The race shirt is also one of the best I have received. It was a short-sleeve technical shirt with navy blue and white accents. It is definitely something that will get worn rather than fill my T-shirt drawer. The next good point was the number of aid stations. There must have been 24 or 25 (they seemed to be everywhere) and they were well stocked with enthusiastic volunteers, water and Gatorade Endurance (excellent!).

In short, that covers ALL of the good points.

With that said, where do I start with my disappointments about this venue? First was the throng of people. With about 14,000 finishers, I would guess there were about 15,000 starters. This day and age, that is not a overwhelmingly large field. My last large event was R'n'R Las Vegas and it had nearly twice the starters (and Chicago had nearly three times that). Maybe it was the lack of a staggered start. Maybe the roads were narrow (although it didnt seem like it). I don't know what it was, but until the half marathoners exited the course at mile 12.5, it was a zoo. At mile 10.5, the ING Cheer Zone there was such a crowd, running a 10:45 pace, that the runners almost had to come to a stop. In all the big events that I have run, make that any event that I have run, I have never felt as claustrophobic as I did on this course for the first 12.5 miles.

While the course did run over the bridges to and from Miami Beach (which provided some neat sights), I was unimpressed with it overall. We crossed four drawbridges that had open grates. They were not covered (Chicago and MCM cover theirs) and made for some very treacherous footing. I can only imagine the poor barefoot runners.

The course also lacked energy. Yes, there were five or six community fun zones on the back half, but they were sparse compared to the rest of the residential areas that had very, very few locals out cheering the runners on.

Yes, I ran (walked) with an extremely debilitating IT band injury over the last 14 miles, but that had nothing to do with my impression of the course. It was just plain and unexciting.

I am happy that I train in FL, where we are used to the heat and humidity. The day started out at 75 degrees (pre-dawn starting line temperature) with Florida's typical humidity. What a difference from running in a continuous 55 degrees last weekend in the Instep Icebreaker Indoor Marathon. The heat gave me no problems but there were people in from the north that were lying on the ground with cramps and/or puking all over the place.

There were many, many international runners from more countries that I could count. I enjoyed running and trying to communicate with them, but I almost felt like the party was thrown for them and the locals were the ones that suffered.

As for hotels, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Downtown (340 Biscayne Boulevard), which was the ideal location. The hotel is so-so. I call it serviceable, but it was clean, the rooms were decent (you could see the water and the marina), and best of all, it was two blocks from the starting line, and two blocks from the finish. It wasn't particularly expensive either. That is tough to beat! At the end of the day, this wasn't the worst marathon that I have run, but I would put it in the bottom 10-15% without a doubt.

If you want to run a great FL marathon, I'd go somewhere else. If you want to vacation in Miami, enjoy South Beach, and do a marathon while you are there, then you can justify doing this one.

For me, even with the great bling and T-shirt, it was my first and last Miami Marathon.

I was completely wowed by the 2010 Miami Marathon. I almost didn't do it because of the reviews of years past. From the start - the line for the women's restroom was only 15 deep. I actually got to go twice within an hour of the start. Most marathons - I don't even get to go once prior to start. An early start time was ideal. My favorite part was surprising: Miles 16-20. It was running through backroads in neighborhoods in coconut grove with multi-generation families celebrating with us. In big-city marathons you typically don't get to experience the neighborhoods. Water and Gatorade stops were well stocked and frequent, and we got positive encouragement. As always, the last 3 miles were tough - but that is when the fan support is great. There was lots of cheering for you even though they don't know you. I was able to taxi to and from the race. I'll be back - hopefully next year.

Due to injury, I had to run the half. I would say the race was very well organized, and the course was scenic, with two crossings of the bay. The crowd coming off of the second causeway was awesome. It is south Florida; it is humid and warm, so train accordingly if you plan this race. Luckily, we had cloud cover on this day. Biggest gripe I have is that water/Gatorade were given out at the same tables. I have seen it work well when the two are clearly separated, since not everyone wants both fluids at same time.

I ran the Miami Marathon last year, after having lived here for about 18 months. It's a destination marathon in the sense that it's in Miami in January, so you can escape the cold weather and make a vacation of it. However, as a resident, I was disappointed in the course/fan support. I didn't mind that you run through some sketchy areas, but running through desolate sketchy areas is unacceptable - and the entire course is pretty desolate, due to the necessarily early start time. Get bands out there, get the local radio stations to broadcast from the course (and play music for the runners), and encourage bars/clubs to stay put all night so that their patrons are still hanging out as the runners go by. Also, CLOSE the course to traffic. The police are super helpful, but the cities need to close the course to traffic, particularly the MacArthur and Venetian Causeways (there are FOUR bridges between Miami and the beach); there's no reason to not close the two that are in the course. All in all, though, it's pleasant weather, and if you do any research, you will find that there is plenty of available and inexpensive ($1-3) parking at the expo. If you're that broken up about not getting your medal (which I can't fathom - I had like three people rushing to put one on me), you can have mine. I hope the race is simply going through growing pains, because it has tons of potential.