Pros:
*Beautiful course along the St. Joseph River.
*Water stops nearly every mile, most stocked with Gatorade Endurance and Gu.
*Plenty of enthusiastic, helpful volunteers.
*Great sites to start (College Football HoF) and finish (ND Stadium) the race.

Cons:
*Ugliest T-shirt I've received at any race: orange, simplistic design, all events listed with nothing to distinguish the marathon finishers from the Family Fun Walk participants.
*Convoluted course, using dead-end streets, parking lots, and the rat maze through the parks at the turn-around.
*Significantly innacurate mile markers on course. (Mile 17, for instance, was only 7/10s, per my Garmin.)
*No monitoring of the course, allowing rampant cheating (course cutting in the park at the turn-around).
*Minimal crowd support, though the few out there were vocal and supportive.
*Hilly and hot, not excessively so, but less than perfect if you are trying to PR.

Course changes this year were detrimental. I saw several leaders make a wrong turn and shorten their course. Some areas were marked poorly, esp. when running through parking lots, as mentioned previously. The course in 2005 was much less confusing, with a nice turn-around loop in Mishawaka.

The start/finish areas were great. Check-in was easy. My enthusiasm has dropped for this race due to the course. I hope it can be improved.

I think many of the commentors here are just whining. This is a fun race! The course problems were caused by some construction issues beyond the control of the RD...my guess they will be fixed next year.

And how can you compare the experience at the end?? Approaching and running on to the historic Notre Dame campus? Looping along the stadium, making the turn, down the tunnel and onto the most famous college football field in the world??

The finish was well organized, IMHO. I had no problem finding plenty of water, Gatorade, fruit. The towels and popsicles were wonderful. I actually noted a lot of people throwing their towels away, so I picked a bunch up and now have a stack to use on my own!

I've run the half the last two years and will probably run the full marathon in 2007.

The was the smallest marathon I have ever run, but I definitely enjoyed it. Things I liked:
- more water stops than I have ever experiences
-nice, flat course. The parking lot loops werent too bad, and highlights of the course included running through parks, along hte river, and finishing in Notre Dame's Stadium.
-Buses bringing runner back to the start area were well organized and ran frequently. The only bad part was another runner got sick on the bus...

Didnt like:
- The shirts - bright orange, and kind of ugly, not something I'd really wear.
- The full marathon medal was small and plain. I had a few friends that ran the 1/2, and their medal was more colorful than mine.
- No power bar or engry food in the race bag.

I have run this race three times: in 1984, the inaugural Sunburst, and in 2005 and 2006. This year the weather was beautiful, compared to the usual heat and humidity that can afflict Indiana at this time of the year.

The course was easy to follow, fast and scenic. Sure we ran through a few parking lots, about a half mile of the entire race distance! What are people complaining about?

The expo was small, but so what? It's a small race.

The shirt was a shocking orange that really grows on you. Who cares if it isn't CoolMax. And I thought the medal was fine, not as massive as some others, like Little Rock, but a source of pride, worth displaying.

The finish inside ND is fabulous. Almost no crowd support but what do you expect for a race that starts at 6 a.m.?

Great volunteers, police presence and aid. I would love a beer at the end but I realize that isn't possible on the Notre Dame campus.

All in all a great run in a great town. My wife qualified for Boston and I recommend the race to anyone that simply enjoys running marathons, regardless of the goodies and perks that go along with the over-hyped, over-produced and over-expensive marathons that attract most of the crowds nowadays.

Very pretty course from the start to Mishawaka. Plenty of aid stations. I had hoped to run through my old neighborhood in Mishawaka, but the course was changed to loop around several miles of concrete paths in a park along the river, which was very nasty. The finish was great, with cooling tent, free massages, and popsicles.

What a surprise - a wonderful small race with a super finish. Finishing around Notre Dame stadium, running through the tunnel and ending inside the stadium to a great reception. Cold towels, popsicles, and melon cups to refresh - what can be better? Appreciate the nice nylon backpack gift along with the t-shirt.

A very well organized race - well marked course, quite frequent aid stations, and watermelon at one aid station - what a treat! But, expected some refreshments at the start. Well distributed port-a-toilets through the course, but more needed at the start.

The course was good except for the too-frequent intersections. But the sentries did a very good job. Enjoyed the run through Mishawaka Park.

Thanks for the reminder on the website about the change in start times and for the change in Indiana times.

I thought running a marathon was about finishing, not about what you get. The shirt was fine. I don't need anymore tech shirts either, plus I only wear those when I run, so who can see that?

The course was nice - a few out-an-backs w/ parking lots, but the parks were really nice, shady with plenty of water stops. The volunteers were great, and you couldn't have asked for better weather. And the wet towel and popsicles at the finish were nice. Definitely would do it again.

A nice race with an odd course that leads on a road to nowhere, but great water stations with Gu early in the race. Not all marathons can be compared to the "major" races. For a small marathon, I felt well supported, and got a nice medal and a nice, bright orange cotton shirt. I do not need any more technical shirts.

South Bend. Wow, nice place really, rich in history and college spirit with Notre Dame College, a very nice place indeed. BUT "ghetto" is the best description I can describe the course. With a city this big and nice, and with so much going for it, why were we running in park parking lots to kill distance???!! I thought, "Ok, I hope that's as bad as that gets" - NOT! I was horrified when several lead runners were coming straight at me and other runners because that's the way the course was laid out. Even worst still there was a point that was so confusing as to which way to go that I almost disqualified myself but was saved by pre-runners running towards me - where were the course officials?? There were way too many course intersections that should had been guarded by officials to prevent cheating and/or confusion.

I feel bad about saying all these bad things because it was still a good marathon, especially the finish in stadium. And the timing of the year makes this a good race to keep in marathon shape for, we need more like these around this time of the year in spite of the potential heat problems.

This race just needs somebody in charge who don't just draw the course out on a map but run/walk/ride it out to remove the snags this one has and to use the college and city a lot more instead of having everyone zig-zag past each other over and over again.