It is nice that the race starts outside Cam Henderson Center (Marshall's basketball arena, which is just a couple of blocks from the stadium). The arena is open to all runners. That means a warm place to stretch and wait for the race to start. It also means plenty of nice bathrooms so that I don't have to deal with the porta-potties that are the only option for many races.

It finishes inside the football stadium and you can carry a football over the last 100+ yards.

I highly recommend this race. The course is very flat, with the exception of during a couple of short east-west stretches that included about a half-block hill that didn't amount to much.

Huntington is a nice, small, college town. The course includes short stretches at the beginning and toward the end at Harris Riverfront Park. That was an interesting sight running by there early with the thin layer of fog or mist rising just over the surface of the Ohio River.

I loved the miles along the beautiful Ritter Park, which included running on trails. I wasn't a big fan of the two loops that went into the southern part of Huntington. Those were fairly nondescript and boring, but that would be my only beef about the course.

MUM's expo was one of the smallest I've ever seen at a marathon, with only one vendor. But that isn't a big deal to me at all and something I'm glad to deal with when I choose a smaller race with a reasonable ($60) registration fee.

The spaghetti dinner was free, but I didn't think it was all that good.

With that money, I got a nice fleece jacket (which they were selling for $40 after the race). You chose between the jacket and the long-sleeve technical shirt. I obviously made the right choice in picking the jacket, since it only cost me $20 to buy the shirt after the race.

When I bought the shirt, they gave me a free DVD of the movie "We Are Marshall." Sunday happened to be the 40th anniversary of the tragic plane crash that killed most of Marshall's football team. To commemorate that, they offered runners a flower as you entered the campus late in the race.

The post-race food spread was excellent. It's the first race of any length that offered hamburgers and hot dogs to finishers, in addition to the more common bananas and bagels.

Another concession when you pick a small marathon is that there isn't much crowd support. I'm sure the colder weather made the support smaller than usual. I'm OK with that and still much prefer smaller marathons over the huge mega marathons that force you to constantly zig-zag around people.

The actual course support by the race officials, volunteers and police officers was excellent.

The course is very good and reflects thoughtful calibration. The organization is excellent too, and I like the fleece.

If you want a flat, fast race that finishes in a football stadium, this is a good race. Much of the course goes through industrial wastelands. It is offset slightly by a few miles in a beautiful park and along a stream, but the course is mainly ugly.

At one point, a police officer came running toward us to tell us we needed to turn. She didn't catch some of the runners in front of us. A better map needs to be available at the packet pick-up; spectators were out of luck.

Also, a timing mat at the start is needed. Why bother with chips without this?

Let me start by saying what a well run event this was. Great communications by the race director leading up to the race, and the event came off without a hitch.

It's a relatively small marathon, in its 6th year, drawing somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-400 marathoners. They also have a half at the same time with double that, so about 1,000 athletes in all. The halfers start 15 minutes later, so the start is not a mess for the marathoners. Good thinking!

The race is small enough so there isn't really an expo - just a packet pick-up. Parking for packet pick up turned out to be a hassle, because that was because a "Battle of the Bands" going on and the lot was full of spectators for that, but that is a one-off and not the fault of the race organizer. At packet pick up they gave everyone the DVD of the movie "We Are Marshall" to commemorate the football team tragedy. We actually had not seen the movie yet, but had wanted to, so it was great treat to get this in the packet.

The course is in the city of Huntington. It loops around a little and there is a section that runs through a park that you go on twice, but the second time you go the opposite direction, so it feels like you aren't running the same course twice. Much of the course is on city streets that have a lane coned off for the runners to use. It worked just fine. They had plenty of police and military and firefighters working the intersections and there was no problem with cars infringing on the runners' lanes. One of the problems with the coned-off lane, though, was that the camber of the road sloped quite a bit near the curb, and I found myself running very close to the vehicle lane to get on a more level surface. All in all, it wasn't too much of a problem.

The forecasters were predicting rain all week, but on Sunday morning it was 38 degrees, sunny, and calm. Perfect!!! The perfect conditions also got me thinking about being a bit more aggressive. I had packed clothing for any possible weather situation, and changed into a singlet 15 minutes before the start. Put a warm-up top over it. Turned out to be a great move. Parking was free and one could park at near the start/finish line at the stadium. More importantly, the course doubled back in front of the parking lot at the 5K mark. I had positioned my car to be facing the street, and when I got there, I simply threw my warm-up shirt on the hood of my car without losing a step in the race. It was still there 4 hours later.

One of the highlights of the event is a tribute to the Marshall football team that died in the plane crash some 20 years ago. The marathon finish is on the goal line inside the Marshall football stadium. You enter the stadium and are routed to the opposite end. There (if you want), you are handed a football that you can carry 100 yards to the finish line at the opposite end. It's kind of cool, and is a highlight of the race. I definitely took the easy lob pass and scored a touchdown on a 100-yard pass play! Not even Marvin Harrison or Reggie Wayne have any 100-yard receptions in their stats!

Small world, these marathons. I ran with a guy in my age group for a bunch of miles. I also found out that this fellow had run Grandma's Marathon (Duluth, MN) last year when I did. It's fun to meet the same nice people again and again.

The relatively flat course is very conducive to a fast race. I was on a pace to negative split until mile 22. But by then, I'd also passed the last guy that looked like he might be in my age group at mile 22 (turns out he wasn't), so my incentive waned. Nevertheless, the second half was only 30 seconds longer than the first. I could see setting a PR here.

I can recommend this marathon for sure. Well-run, and the food afterward almost rivals that at the Indianapolis Marathon. They had pizza, burgers, dogs, Pepsi products, etc. But what tasted the best to me were those little chocolate layer cupcakes - no doubt full of all kinds of bad things, but dang those were good!! I left there stuffed, which is hard to do because I get ravenously hungry after a marathon!

Sign up early and you will get a superb Marshall-University-green fleece jacket. I missed the jacket cut-off date and still got a nice tech long-sleeve shirt.

Gotta run,
Doug

This was my first full marathon, and I could not have picked a better event. The course was quite flat; road camber has been reported to be bothersome to some runners, but I did not experience that, and I am quite injury-prone.

While there were few spectators (hence the three stars), the volunteers were VERY enthusiastic and friendly; they were the BEST I've seen at any race. Plenty of water/Gatorade stops and medical help if you needed it. I felt safe on the course.

The only negative was that it was a little difficult for me to figure out the repeat loop of Ritter Park, but luckily there were still enough other runners around for me to follow, and the volunteers were helpful.

I would do this race again without hesitation. It was a great event and I had a great time!

I was looking for a small, flat race in a place where I could meet my sister from Virginia. I found it here... and so much more!

Pros:
- low cost (early-bird rate was less than the cost of a local summer half)
- great fleece jacket
- plentiful pasta dinner, served by friendly folks who thanked ME for coming
- totally flat (except for one uphill slant early in the race and two trips below a railroad viaduct)
- two opportunities to run through the beautiful Ritter Park and along the riverfront
- excellent traffic control
- enthusiastic volunteers (personally, I don't need crowds lining the course)
- nearby free parking (we were able to stay warmly-dressed and hang out by our cars until just before race time; folks were still pulling into the lot 20 minutes before race time - and weren't panicking)
- carrying a football down the field to the finish line
- the best finish-line food (yummy hamburger!)

Cons:
- really nothing, except for a better online map (a simple fix is to plot it out on mapmyrun.com)

This was my fifth half marathon and I thoroughly enjoyed the race. Not many spectators, but the ones who were there were great. I loved running by the river, through the neighborhoods, by the park, and most of all, through campus and finishing on the football field. The post-race food was great. The volunteers were very friendly. All in all, I had a great time and would highly recommend this race.

I really enjoyed this marathon - the packet pickup/pasta dinner and start were easy to get to, the course was flat as advertised, with traffic very well controlled on the entire course, and it was small enough to feel personal and very easy for my family to navigate to see me. Some stretches didn't have many spectators, but there were plenty of water stops and all the volunteers were very friendly and encouraging, which more than made up for it. Ritter Park was a great place to run on a beautiful fall day, so I was glad the course went through it twice. My family enjoyed how relaxed the finish atmosphere was at the stadium, and how easy it was to meet up with me afterward. Announcing each runner's name as they finished was a really nice touch!

The only issue my family had was that the cones at the corner of 5th and 20th and in front of the stadium on 20th caused some confusion for spectators driving in about whether they could get to the entrance for parking at the stadium. But, that was very minor and they did end up parking at the stadium once they realized the road was open.

I'm trying to do all 50 states, so I usually don't plan to repeat races, but this is one I'm very tempted to come back and do again!

I came in with very low expectations, but was surprised at how much I enjoyed this race. Finding the packet pickup was a little confusing since there were no signs. There was a marching band contest going on, so finding parking was tricky on Friday night. Race day parking was plentiful, close to the start/finish, and most importantly... FREE! The course was great. There was a mix of quiet college campus, waterfront, neighborhoods, and that beautiful park where we got to run twice! I didn't think I'd like that, but it was so beautiful that the miles flew by! It did require me to stop twice to get the little rocks out of my shoes, however. :) Free spaghetti dinner was awesome. It was a HUGE plateful, and if you needed it (can't imagine you would), you could have had seconds. Medal, DVD, fleece, and shirt were great. Unlike most people, I prefer cotton shirts, so I'd rather have had cotton or an option to buy one. Finishing on the football field was amazing. My legs were pretty much dead, but when I hit that field, the softness helped bring them back from the dead for a strong finish. (By the way, be careful driving on 52 in Ohio. Police hiding everywhere!!!)

I'm trying to do all 50 states and have knocked out at least 15 so far. This one was great! Even with a car accident along the way there....

I appreciated the emails sent out; the whole experience had a small-town feel in the sense that you weren't just another number; you were more like a guest. Not a lot of frills in terms of the expo or race map - it definitely didn't have that commercial quality - but I think that's what made this race experience great for me. The course was wonderfully flat. You had to double back a couple of times, which was a little discouraging, but I've definitely seen worse. And the doubled parts were through the prettiest areas, a wooded park. So that was actually rather nice in terms of scenery. The support was perfect in terms of number of water stations. I did long for some more sustenance, like pretzels or oranges or something, but that's what gel is for I guess. :) And the small-town feel again was enhanced by ending in the stadium at Marshall University, running the roses into the campus, and bringing in a football on the last leg in the stadium. I wish I could have stayed for a massage and more food. The medal was nice and the fleece is great. My one regret is that I didn't bring anyone else along with me to enjoy this experience. I never double back on a race, but I am considering coming back next year and supporting friends if they're interested in running the 2010 one. Thank you for the great experience!