Oslo Marathon - Race Reviews

I have run 8 marathons and I would say that participating in the Oslo Marathon is a worthwhile experience but only if you happen to be in Europe and are looking for a new place to add to your marathon total. As others mentioned, the course is a repetitive loop, meaning you see everything twice. It happened to be raining/drizzling nearly the entire race and I wore a sweatshirt for over 3.5 hours. I do have to say much of the scenery is beautiful but the crowd support was uninspiring and the medal leaves much to be desired. I had a pleasant experience overall, but in today's world, with so many marathons out there, this one needs some improvements before I would be able to wholeheartedly encourage friends/family to join in.

The positive: They do close down enough traffic for you to have enough room to run a good marathon, and there is a drink station every 5km. The negatives: Its a 2 lap course. Oslo is big enough for one lap, so they didnt have to do that. Also, about 14km of the course (each lap) is a along the E18 highway with no spectators. Its boring as hell. Not only that, it goes back and forth in this industry complex. Further more, they divide the competition by having 4 different races. They are, however, over the years improving a little bit on the course, that its more in the centre of the city, but it could still be a lot better. The course is also not that fast. Its fairly flat, but not superflat. Its hilly going through Frogner, so in the end, the course is both boring and slow. There isnt much entertainment or spectators along the road, so there isnt really any running culture behind it. Not only that, its ridiculously expensive. So you dont get much value for it. For me who is Norwegian will always go to this race, as it is the largest one in the country, but I would never understand why a foreigner would travel to Oslo to run it.