If you are looking for a well organized, beautiful, scenic, fast, yet challenging course, look no further. I have nothing but good things to say about this race. The course was mostly comprised of quiet country roads and finished in the nice sized town of Stroudsburg about an hour west of NYC. The entire course was closed to cars which must have been no small feat (kudos to the local community and race organizers). The spectators (while small in numbers)and volunteers were spectacular. The course has some pretty substantial uphill portions, but all of them seemed to immediately follow equal or longer downhill portions, as a result, my lungs always felt relatively rested leading up to the uphill portions. This was my third marathon in 07 and despite the relatively heavy schedule, I pr'd by 20 minutes! Needless to say, I fully intend to run this race again and again.

Great smaller marathon. My previous marathons have been on relatively flat courses (ex. Philly, NJ) so this was a bit of a challenge. I'm definitely glad I did some hill work on my longer training runs. Even though there is an overall loss of elevation, after a while downhills are as hard as uphills. Very well-organized, though a little silly to have us drive out to Great Wolf Lodge for the tiny expo. Also, I passed on the afternoon pasta dinner and opted instead to head to Bethlehem (near where I was staying) for a great pasta meal. It's really terrific that all proceeds go to charity. Wonderful crowd support for a small marathon. Also very nice that all but a bit of Main Street in Stroudsburg was run on closed off roads. It seemed as though there were always some runners around me, so not as lonely as I had feared. Temperatures were ideal. Nice welcoming finish at the H.S. track with your name read by the announcer.

Wow! This was my first marathon and it was an experience that will last a lifetime. The race organization (thanks Bob) was perfect, the course is scenic, the many wonderful volunteers were everywhere you needed them to be, and the spectators were inspiring.

At 43, I trained hard for my first marathon, but despite everything I read that told me not to, I still went out too fast. I was ahead of Boston Qualifying pace, 3h20m for my age group, for a good part of the race, but there are some hard, long hills in the latter stages, especially around Mile 22, which took their toll and I finished in 3:28.

I made a point to thank as many of the volunteers and spectators for their support as I could, as none of these races would ever happen without them. They did themselves proud!

I had read that this is a very fast downhill course, given its net 1,500 foot drop, but if you extend yourself to the max like I did for the first 16 to 18 miles, the hills will get you in the end. I hope to run this again next year, and with another year of training and a better strategy, improve my time. More importantly, I hope the race grows in numbers, as this event has the ability to support many more runners, and continue to raise money for a great charitable cause.

I entered this race based on its stellar reputation from the first year, and it did not disappoint. This is really one of my favorite events now. This course is very fast, but also deceptively difficult, as the hardest section is in the last few miles. This is definitely a PR course, but it will be a painful PR. The streets are closed to traffic, which means you can cut the tangents on the curves, and you can run in the middle of the road to avoid the camber on the sides. The aid stations were frequent, and all of the mile markers were accurate, except for one. At the end of the course, there is some (very enthusiastic) crowd support when you probably need it the most, and finishing on the high school track is a really nice touch. As for the rest of the course, it can be a little lonely, but residents of the small towns along the way come out to cheer, which is really nice.

The volunteers at this event are great, as is the organization as a whole. As one who has taken wrong turns during races before, I really, really appreciated how well-marked and easy to follow the course was. This is sometimes a drawback with smaller events, but on this course, there were actually trucks blocking some of the wrong turns, and that scored huge points with me.

My only very, very minor complaint is that the expo was sort of far away from both the start and finish, which made it a little inconvenient. Overall, it was a great and memorable experience, and I'll definitely come back.

Congratulations to the organizers - this is a well run event with a great course. The people were friendly, and the declines and scenery were great. I highly recommend Running for the Red, and hope to be back next year.

Every aspect of this race was well organized, starting with the expo, through the shuttle busses and all the way to bag pickup after the race. One of the best parts is that since the start was at a local school, you could rest in the gymnasium and more importantly, not wait in line forever for the bathroom (first time ever!), lots of facilities were available.

The course was challenging, don't be misled into thinking its all downhills by the elevation drop. Take a good look at the chart because miles 6-11 and 20-24 do offer some tougher rolling hills that will sneak up on you if you let them. Overall the scenery of the Pocono Mountains was great throughout, and with such a small field of runners, it was easy to get into a pace without running into people like in larger marathons.

The crowd support was better than I expected, and I was surprised at the number of people in the last 2 miles cheering us on (by name thanks to the local paper). It really made the difference for me in achieving a PR, and first sub 4-hour marathon.

Keep up the great work, the second year was better than the first, can't wait for the third!

Course is deceivingly difficult, but extremely well organized. The volunteers were numerous, exceptional, and friendly. Even the normally staid state troopers were cheering for us! Only criticism: website should be more helpful in indicating hotels convenient for runners.

I ran this race based on the positive comments from last year's race.

Overall, the course was fast (I PR'd by close to 4 minutes), but it contains a number of challenging hills. The course elevation profile on the website, which is compressed, does NOT reflect those hills and gives the misleading impression that the course is all downhill. It is not.

The course is well-organized from a runner's standpoint, with the roads closed all along the route. However, from a spectator's standpoint those road closures make it difficult for spectators and family to watch runners along the course and there is not much in way of fan support.

Between miles 8 to 19 the course has some nice scenery for the runners. The marathon is small (less than 500 runners). You won't be fighting traffic at the start, but you also may not have companionship during the finishing miles.

Overall, it is a nice smaller marathon for a runner who is more interested in a fast time, than the type of fan support one would expect at a larger marathon.

This was my 30th. marathon. Good things about the race: nice course but challenging (quite few hills) and completely closed to traffic. The course was very well marked and the pre-race dinner was free for all participants. Few spectators but they were very, very nice and supportive. The field size is small, not too crowded like some urban ones.

However this young marathon lacks of many basic amenities like gel packs at few aids stations and clocks at strategic points. Although one clock was placed at the half marathon point. The water stops were too far apart which could be a problem with a slightly warmer temperature.

The marathon package was missing a course map with miles break down of all the points. The long sleeve shirt was incredibly ugly and the logo was poorly designed and doesn't market well the Poconos mountains marathon.

The post-race amenities reflected a budget race and are comparable to those of a some 5K's. The marathon web site did not have a direct link to lodging either and missed some important informations (added later on by the organizers). And truly the $65 fee is too high for an event with so little amenities.

The course was beautiful and the organization was great, but declines are not necessarily as good as they sound. By halfway, my quads were screaming and I couldn't keep my stride with such pain. Funny enough, the inclines were my only friends, and the declines were so painful that I had to walk some. Great course if you really know you can handle the declines, but I'll not take that chance ever again. Watch out!