St. Patrick's Day Marathon

The race officials for this marathon have no honor. Not only were the t-shirts the wrong ones, but they also failed to give the date and the location of the race. I can buy a shirt from Goodwill that says "5 mile", "13.1 mile", and "26.2 mile". No results were ever posted, emailed, or snail-mailed. I actually have no proof of running a marathon in Washington State. Promised awards were never sent. Emailing the race director got NO responses. Good cause or not, I would steer clear of this one. Elma was my 40th marathon and by far the worst organized. There's another race in this small town Aug 24th. I would run elsewhere....

The most disturbing aspect of this marathon is that ONLY water is provided each two miles, so I would highly reccomend that potential marathoners bring their own source of electrolite replacement...or they may end up like me..flat as a board with no energy 17 miles into the run and no source of sugar or salt in sight. (Luckily I flagged down some bicyclists on a tour paralelling the course, kind enough to give me a power bar or I may not have finished.) At the very end of the full marathon .....(low key in which there were about 20-25 participants.. high school students actively manned water station each one to two miles)....; stood the amenities which many of us could have used during the race: generic colas, cookies, Strawberries and cold 'hot chocolate' (at least in my case being a (4:40) marathoner.) The Shirt, contrary to the statement on the entry,is neither scenic, nor long sleeve. It is a plain 'Hanes' style short sleeve T Shirt with bright florescent letters that states: 'Elma ST Patrick's Day Races 5 Mile, 13.1 Mile and 26.2 miles.' (Incidentally all courses are out and back on the same route.) The route itself is extremely scenic and passes rivers, pasture land, farms, high water (this year), green grass and I even passed a heard of about 30 Elk. I understand the need to raise money for local high school programs (which the races benefited)and not take up all racve proceeds, but in my opinion a small investment of some cheap powdered sports drink would have made a world of difference. In summary unless changes are made, (with rgard to course support), I would only reccomend the marathon to distance runners (such as ultra marathoners) who are conditioned to being self supportive over lengthy running routes, or enjoy the scenerinity of running most of the marathon course alone (especially after the half marathon turn around at 6.5 miles.)