This was my second year participating in the Colfax Marathon, having done the relay last year and the full race this year. I must say, I enjoyed the course more this year going through downtown vs. all the way down Colfax. With that said, it was a really difficult first marathon to run. There were a lot of ups and downs to the course, more heavily focused on the ups! I thought the spectator participation was outstanding. There were people everywhere willing to cheer you on or give you water, Gatorade, oranges, Gu, or even a spray-down with a hose. The spectators are definitely what pushed me to the finish. The organization was ok. I also did not get a marathon shirt but left my address so hopefully they will mail me one. For the price paid for this race I believe they need to have enough shirts for the marathon runners. They had plenty of the relay shirts. The longer this race continues, the better the organization of it will get. I think if I do another marathon I would like to try a less difficult course, but if you are looking for a challenge, this is definitely a great race for you.

Denver has arrived... finally... with a great spring marathon.

The CO Colfax Marathon team made putting on this year's well-run race look easy - which, of course, it's not.

Excellent support:
- Excellent water/Gatorade/gel stations with great volunteers... plus many extra "unofficial" water stations and hose spray stations - very welcome on this warm race day.
- Fun, eclectic mix of frequent bands and musicians - hard not to pause and listen to the fun music!
- Well-marked - a nice feature was split-time displays at regular intervals
- The hundreds of intersections were well-manned with alert police and volunteers
- Beautiful, interesting course... kept some of the unique Colfax Avenue historical "Americana" along with a nice inclusion of city, parks, lakes.
- SOOOO nice not to have to get up in the middle of the night to catch a 4:00 a.m. bus to the start. Keep the loop.
- Nice to see many Denver Rescue Mission runners - sponsored by The AIR Foundation - a great, local program that sponsors mission residents to train for and run a full marathon in order to recover/build confidence and positive life skills.

The 2008 race course had four problems:

First, marathoners like myself had to run through the relay exchange areas. At the first exchange, I had to walk behind a wheelchair trying to navigate a gauntlet of relay runners crowding the course in anticipation of receiving their teammate's handoff. At the third exchange point, I was running through the one-person wide corridor when a fresh relay runner behind me elbowed me aside. This was not right and in the future, I will not enter any marathon that does not have separate relay exchange areas.

Second, the start could hold maybe 1000 runners but there were 3-5 times that number.

Third, running on Simms with stopped cars spewing exhaust fumes over the runners was not nice.

Fourth, non-runners blocking the entrance to Sloan's Lake led to inconvenience.

I ran the half marathon, and since it was my first race, I don't have much to compare it with. However, I will try and sum up the pros and cons of this race:

Pros:
1) Flat course (half marathon)
2) Small crowd during the course but some very enthusiastic fans (thank you to the cheering, high-fiving policeman at mile 9; that helped me lot!)
3) Water stations every two miles
4) Easy course to follow
5) Shady course, especially the second half
6) Good location for my family to wait while I was running
7) Great volunteers
8) The policemen did a great job directing traffic and letting runners get through all those intersections

Cons:
1) No smaller women's t-shirts left on Saturday (I went home with a men's small shirt)
2) Cheap-looking shirts
3) Small expo
4) The stage should have been set up on the grass so the runners could enjoy the music after the race while they were stretching out
5) I went home with a 2007 medal instead of one for 2008
6) The finish area was absolutely jam-packed and was very difficult to get through

Overall, I had a really good experience and I would do the race again. Good job, Colfax Marathon!

Ten-fold improvement over last year. Fantastic course, decent fan support and overall good organization. Whoever they talked to since last year gave them good advice - this was a tremendous success. I'll be back next year.

I ran this race again this year - wanted to give 'em another try. Last year was a disaster - wrong mileage, terrible organization. The good stuff first: The '08 full marathon course was MUCH better, a loop starting in City Park - a great central location. There were water stops all along the course, as often as every mile in the middle, also volunteers handing out GU at least 4 times. Plenty of enthusiastic volunteers, and plenty of porta-johns at the start, unbelievably. The crowd was sparse, as expected. Now the bad - the expo sucked, in my opinion. Not many vendors, and I question the judgment of holding the expo in the same place as the start/finish. Little parking at the start, and it was all in a cramped space. The t-shirt was better than last year, as promised, but NO GOODY BAG. What the heck? Not even a bag to check race day gear. A bib, a chip, a t-shirt, and a thank you very much for the 90 bucks. Hey a goody bag is part of the deal, no? Some schwag?? So all in all, a good race; I enjoyed it very much.

1. No large t-shirts left on Saturday afternoon. Glad I signed up for one.
2. T-shirt was lame. The Boulder Bolder one is nicer. I don't need another sleep t-shirt.
3. Expo was tiny.
4. The starting area was INCREDIBLY confusing and set up for failure.
5. "Go?" That's how a marathon starts?
6. Faster course? Fewer hills? All hills. They managed to pick the hilliest part of the old course and then add 17th St. just for good measure, which was more difficult than the original course ending at the mall.
7. Finish line gives you 25 feet to walk off your run and then shoves you into a packed airless tent. Horrible.
8. It seemed the race was basically set up for relays. Is it not possible to keep the hand-off points at least 5 feet-wide? Difficult to run through.

Good point: Plenty of port-a-potties. Certainly not a reason to run a fourth Colfax Marathon next year.

The elevation killed me and the gradual incline didn't help, but overall, the support of the crowd and other runners was great!

...but it totally sucked. The organization was fine except for the course coverage. Not the thing to have at the midway point where it was so conspicuous and kind of demoralizing.

The real bummer is Colfax itself. Now, before you brand me an interloper who has no right to put down Colfax, I work at National Jewish, right at the 11-mile mark, and collaborate with folks at Fitzsimmons (miles 5-6) all the time. I want to see Colfax be re-developed as much as the next guy, and I understand that Aurora, Denver, and Lakewood have teamed up to try and help the process along through events like the marathon. Great, I'm 100% behind you.

The problem is that the course is just really, really awful. I knew it would be, but I wanted to do it once just to tell people, "yep, I ran 26.2 miles down Colfax."

How to change the course? Leave out the Lakewood section, add a long loop through Stapleton, extend the loop through city park, throw in a loop around Cheeseman park, and then finish at either the state capitol - or logistically, Invesco Field would be a better choice in terms of parking, etc.

Also, to keep Lakewood involved, they could start the half-marathon at Colorado Mills Mall and finish at the same place as the marathon. That way, it would be almost all downhill, except for a relatively moderate climb at the start heading east from CO Mills.

But will they listen to me? Probably not.

I chose this race for its unusual route - I have never run a marathon along one street before. I loved the changing neighborhoods, the ability to see the course for miles ahead and the constant clear view of the distant mountains. However, I was ill-prepared for the temperature. The lack of shade on the course meant little escape from the sun and the radiated heat from the pavement. The final steep ascent once inside the Colorado Mills Mall complex was also hard to bear.

Despite the fact that there was a discrepancy in the measurement between mile 12 and 13, causing marathoners to run 1/2 a mile extra (which was demoralizing at the time) I feel that the organizers handled their error well and did their best to redress the balance.