Holland Haven Marathon

This was a well organized race. Buses took you from the finish to the start. They also had a bag check in and had bags available since I did not have one. It was not difficult to check in or get my bag at the end. Course had a couple of hills but mostly flat and mostly shaded. Although I am used to having all the road to run on, running on the blacktop bike path was very nice. There were a lot of spectators for a small town run, a lot more than I expected. They also had a lot of volunteers that made a huge difference. Having them to help with water points, traffic crossings, setting up/teardown etc. was great. Water stations and aide stations were every two miles and there was plenty of water/Gatorade. I think they could have had more food along the course. There were only blueberries somewhere around mile 20 and some candy towards the end. I was lucky I had my wife meet me along the way with oranges. Finish line was ok, could have had a little more food, spectators were awesome at the end. I will definitely run this one again.

For starters, the race director sent out lots of e-mails in the weeks leading up to the marathon, and an abundance of information was available to the runners. Of course, we had to sort it out to make use of the information. Packet pickup was at a sporting goods store downtown. It was slow driving through the business district, but parking was available. Packet pickup was a breeze. The finish line was right off River Street - still kind of in the downtown area, and that is right where the buses were waiting Sunday morning to get the runners to the start line. Parking was available around (near) the finish-line & post-race area. So the runners were bused to Rosy Mound School in Grand Haven - but the school is on Lakeshore Drive (between Grand Haven and Holland) and we were never in the 'city' portion of Grand Haven. Everyone congregated at the school, and at 7:30 the runners were sent off - from the sidewalk. The road was not closed, but there was virtually no traffic. Still, the sidewalk/trail was used. The runners stayed on the trail essentially the whole way - though some runners chose to run on the side of the road. It was residential area most of the way. Once we got into Holland, we started making turns through the community to get the distance correct. By then I was dis-oriented and had no idea where I was in town. Still, the course stayed on paved trail until about the last half mile. There, we were directed to run on the side of the road, which had the edge coned off for the runners. Finally we made a left turn across the road - with law-enforcement there controlling traffic for the runners. At the finish line, there was water available, with lemon-aide and Gatorade too. Snacks were available too: gummy fruit, pretzels, and oatmeal bars. This marathon was a bit on the expensive side, but they had to rent buses to transport the runners. A couple of other comments: The logo was a windmill (for Holland) and under it, a boat anchor (for Grand Haven). It was a cool logo. They put the logo on the volunteer shirts, but not on the marathon T-shirts. The shirts were plain blue that said 'Holland Haven Marathon 2021'. I was really disappointed with the shirt. But the medal was the windmill with the anchor, and it was really cool. I got a logo sticker to put on my car window. There were no bananas available afterwards. None on the course either. And it seemed like only every other (alternating) aid stations had Gatorade. And there were no gels on the course either. Carb snacks were not available on the course until late in the race. They could have done a better job on that. One station did have blueberries, and they were very good! In closing, I rode my bicycle on Lakeshore Drive between Grand Haven and Holland several times during junior high and high school - back in the early 1970's - and I did not recognize anything on the course - except the power-plant that was near Grand Haven. If you like point-to-point marathons, this is a good race that is scenic with hills that are not too aggressive.

This was my 30th marathon. The course was lovely, the weather was great. What made it an unusual organizing challenge was the pandemic. Under health department guidelines, the marathon start had to be broken up into 9 groups, with starting times spread out from 6am to 9am. It's a miracle it worked so well as it did. Spectators were discouraged from coming out this year, but various people waving from their lawns were very supportive.