I ran this as part of the Earn Your Mittens challenge with the Wisconsin Marathon the day before. Kalamazoo put on a great race and really did a lot of nice little things to make us Mitteners feel special. There was race day packet pickup. Nice tech shirt, great medal and a nice extra medal for finishing the challenge. The spectators were fantastic and so were the volunteers. Plenty of well stocked aid stations, and very frequent. This year, it was warm and there was plenty of water and Gu brew even for a back of the pack runner like me. They announced my name as I crossed the mat. We also got a nice meal with different options-taco or chili or hot dog, cookie or yogurt or fruit, etc. It was a nice atmosphere to sit and hang out at the finish and enjoy the great weather and your achievment.

The course was challenging, with some rollers. I like the areas in the park, the lake and the neighborhoods. The loops around the WMU campus were very dull, but no race is perfect. I also liked that the half marathon split off from the full marathon early on and by the time I reached the point where they met up again, the half marathoners were long gone. Popsicle hill and Bacontown....lots of great spectators! Also, parking near the start was a breeze.

Lots of support from organizers, volunteers and the community. Enthusiasm runs high all around the course. The race is small enough and the roads wide enough that running is always comfortable. If you like music, you can also hear a lot of great pianists at the Gilmore Festival.

You can tell that the organizers worked very hard to make this a good experience for everyone. Fans along the route seemed genuinely pleased that you would come to their town to run a marathon. Overall I thought it was a great experience.

The course gives you quite a mix. After running, I felt like I had a good sense of Kalamazoo. Some charming parts (downtown area, university campus, parks, including some running on a paved path), but also some sections that were not-so-charming (a busy street with auto-dealers and strip malls). Also residential neighborhoods. I enjoyed the course much more than I expected.

Im a bit surprised to see all the comments about the hills  I guess this all depends on what you are used to. If you are used to pancake-flat courses, then, yes, you will find some hills here. But this is by no means a hilly course  it is mostly flat with a few rather mild hills thrown in for variation. I enjoy running hills, and would have loved more on the course. (No criticism here  different runners have different preferences.)

This was a VERY well organized event!

Positives - I thought the course was pretty & the spectators were tremendous - especially through some of the neighborhoods. Also, the police on the course were the friendliest of any marathon I've ran. They were actually cheering for us in addition to monitoring traffic!

The course was way hillier than I expected, but that's not a bad thing. It definitely made it more challenging if you weren't hill-prepared. But, it also mixed it up some.

Negatives - The only negative I have is that I didn't feel there were enough water stations on the marathon course. I would have liked to see 3 or 4 more out there. There were times (& it was a hot second half of the race) that it seemed like forever between water stops. The stops also used Dixie cups for water & they were only half-full. This required the runner to take 4 or 5 little cups to get enough. If the stops were a little more frequent, I think this would have been fine.

Over all, a very nice event.

For a first-time marathon, all areas were at or above expectations. I liked the course. With the many different angles of running, my legs recovered well.

Will definitely repeat. A few areas of the course are not the nicest, but overall a nice race.

Great organization, nice course, cool medal.

Have pace clocks out on the course to make it easier to keep track of your time.

The course was a little tough for me, with so much hill, esp., at the end, but the community support more than made up for that. There was a little confusion at the half/full split. I almost knocked down a young man trying to get through the throng to go straight for the full. Sorry young man, whoever you are. I sadly had to bypass the Girl Scout cookies since I was taking advantage of Bronson's downhill gravity to make up for the time I lost hugging so many spectators. Of course I knew the spectators I hugged, or at least I thought I did. It was WONDERFUL ! The bands were good. The water stops fantastic! AND whoever that guy was on that last hill yelling his lungs out at all of us to get up that hill, THANK YOU !

Great course and unbelievable crowd support. The atmosphere in the Winchell neighborhood was the best. First-class event that I won't miss next year! Great job, everyone!!!