Baystate Marathon

I ran this one a year and a half ago, and am really sorry I wasted my time going there. If you're not staying near the start, get there early because parking is a nightmare. There weren't enough porta potties. Several of us were still waiting in line when the gun went off. The road surfaces were poor on the bridges. There was almost no crowd support for the first half and none for the second. I finished after 5 hours and had to go in search of my finisher's medal. And they were closing down the food stations.

This race could be better organized. The half and full start on opposite sides of the road which makes no sense because they then merge. Why not start one earlier? It was very crowded running the first couple miles and I almost ran into a wooden A frame sign in the middle of the road. The signs were for cars entering from side roads which for some reason were not closed to traffic. One sign had been knocked over indicating someone ran into it. Why not close the side roads for an hour so the runners can get by? There were also cones in the middle of the road. Runners were yelling "sign" and "cone" so others wouldn't run into them. The roads were open for traffic for most of the course and there were stretches where the cones were only five feet from the side of the road leaving very little room to run. I specifically picked this race because it's advertised as a flat course. It's not. There are rolling hills for a good chunk of the race. Miles 4-8 and 14-18 are the same rolling hills because you do two loops. I struggled on the hills with the wind and my legs were spent by 18. Beware. Also, I ran tangents throughout the race as any experienced marathoner will do, but my GPS still said 26.45. Just received the results and my gun time and net time are the same despite the fact that I crossed the starting line a minute after the start.

So many things were done right - well organized, easy packet pickup, easy parking for marathon, inside space to wait before the race, friendly and helpful volunteers, great city support for race, nice shirt and medal. My only complaint, and reason for my 2 rating of course is that there are a lot of stretches during the race where runners had very little space (sometimes the side of the road only) and we were always going direction of traffic meaning that vehicles zipped past us from behind - if the road has to be shared, I do prefer facing traffic...easier on the nerves. View of the bridge twice for marathoners was fantastic, though.