New Orleans Mardi Gras Marathon

I will preface my comments with the fact that I hit my goal time (thanks to a great pacer!) and that we had near perfect marathon weather -- around 60F with overcast skies. Pros: Overall, I would recommend this race. 1) New Orleans is a super fun town for a road trip and a great place to spoil yourself post-race! 2) I liked the course. As others have said, the first half is very interesting, but I also liked the 2nd half out and along Lake Pontchartrain. I could see that if it were full sun, it could be more difficult. 3) The start was very organized and the corrals were well run. There are also several hotels right by the start so you could stay in bed and inside almost up until the start time. 4) The shuttles to and from the finish were much easier to use than I had imagined. 5) The course support was spot on. 6) The medal is cool, if that is important to you. The t shirt is just okay, but I did appreciate that they had a separate shirt for the marathon. Cons: 1) The expo was really disappointing. For a town as cool as New Orleans, they could have had more merchandise than just the Rock and Roll stuff. 2) You really need to watch your step on the New Orleans roads. 3) The finish area was just okay. Maybe it was hopping when all of the half-marathoners finished, but by the time I finished the marathon, it was just a mostly empty field. 4) They could have done a much better job communicating about the start, finish, and shuttle pick up areas by providing maps of these areas ahead of time. 5) The marathon is pretty flat, but there is a rather large bridge at Mile 25. I was glad our pacer warned us in advance and had a good strategy to attack it. Otherwise, it could really put a wrinkle in your time planning.

This would be a badass half-marathon...unfortunately I was doing the full marathon. Personally I need some shade and crowds and music and the first half of this race gives you all of that... it really was a solid run for the first 13 and you cover some great sights of NOLA. The back half was abandoned. Full sun, no crowds, not enough music. I've run with a lot more music at non-RNR events...I didn't really see what made a Rock n Roll event special or different. Finish line was weak, food was lacking (cheese-its and banana) and the beer was Michelob Ultra (which isn't beer). All in all I would recommend this race for people wanting to do a half, not for those seeking out a full.

The Rock and Roll race series definitely knows how to put on an event and the New Orleans Marathon was no exception. The Expo was well done with plenty of interesting and knowledgeable vendors to spend time with and pick their brains. The corral setup was smooth and actually ran quickly and efficiently, much better than I have experienced in the past with Rock and Roll events. The course was staggeringly flat, almost to the point where the lack of topography was worse than having a few hills for variety. The first half of the race was quite interesting, through some historic neighborhoods and the French quarter. The half and full didn't split until after mile 12 so there was plenty of weaving in and out of crowds during the first half of the race. After the split, there was a massive decrease in the number of runners around me. It seemed that this race had an even larger proportion of half marathoners than any race I've done in the past. This wasn't a big deal to me, but someone who isn't comfortable running by themselves might find this disconcerting to come so far into the run. The biggest draw back to this race was the lack of spectators. While I don't need big crowds for motivation, it was oddly quiet for the vast majority of the run. I assume this was as a result of being New Orleans and early on a Sunday morning so shouldn't have been much of a surprise. The back half of the marathon was not as interesting, a couple of out and backs through a park and along a lake front. It was nice, but without much spectator support it wasn't much different than a typical weekend long run. But, with the flat course and great weather, it was definite PR type conditions and I was able to set a PR by about 10 minutes so no complaints for me.