Lake Tahoe Marathon

I decided to run the LTM after reading positive reviews online, but I have to say that I was super disappointed. It started with poor communications: an outdated website and long, rambling emails with details for the weekend's various events all smashed together in a bulleted list. When they failed to apply for road closure permits in time and had to cancel the Saturday and Sunday races (with a revised course on Sunday), their outdated server didn't reach gmail accounts until 11:45 pm on Friday. Worse yet, what was supposed to be a scenic run around the lake turned into a series of out-and-backs on SLT's public bike trails, shopping areas, and housing developments (not at all scenic). There were no port-a-potties except about 10 at the start line (shared by ALL of the weekend's races), minimal race-appropriate fuel at the aid stations (even though the volunteers were super sweet), and then a party-size bowl of pretzels at the finish line (unless you wanted to drop more cash at the vendors). The swag was also pretty sad. Prior years' cool duffels have been replaced by cheap string backpacks, and they ran out of race-specific swag finish line. This was just such an all-around disappointment. I think it was a great race in prior years, but this year was a total flop. I get that the permit issue was a huge wrench, but Les also never took accountability, and instead lambasted Caltrans in all of his communications. Given all of the other chaos of the weekend, you can't blame the state for everything.

This year was a little different with the road closures. Les did a great job keeping everyone notified and he was flexible with the resolution proposed by the ultra runners. We don't run Tahoe to be fast, we run it for the gorgeous scenery and the awesome people. We are definitely coming back in 2018. Thanks. Eric and Jen Johnson

The course was absolutely gorgeous, aid stations were plentiful and had great people working them, and everything felt very organized. But for the machine glitch, causing results to be delayed, everything was perfect.