Helsinki City Marathon

I ran the Helsinki City Marathon in 2017. The race was decent but not nearly as flat as you would have thought. The good: The finisher medal is stunning and chunky, aid stations are good and plenty. The finish is in a stadium and your name and finish time are displayed on a big screen in the stadium, and your name sounds in the speekers once you enter the stadium and cross the finish line. The city is beautiful and worth a visit. You get to see the fiisher medal at the expo, which is motivating as it is really beautiful. The bad: Not many suppoters, and the marathon was not advertised at all in the city, so no locals seemed to know there was even a race. The expo was quite small and poor. The course is a two loop, so a bit boring. There was no 'Finish' sign or anything in the stadium, just a white line on the ground. I had never seen that before, so I was a bit uncertain if I had crossed the finish line at all, which is a bit of an anti climax. The absolut worst part of the marathon is the 3 pm start! This makes no sense for a race held in the middle of the summer. If you are very lucky with the weather, it might not break your race, but the race organizers advertise that the average temperature at that time of year is around 20 degrees. The late start also means that, unless you are a local who can go home to eat a late dinner after the race, you will have a real problem finding dinner after the race. By the time you finish the race, get back to your hotel and clean up and get back into the city for dinner, most restaurants will be closed. In 2017 one in three runners came from outside of Finland, so this was a major issue. The weather also happened to be terrible. 26 degrees and extremely humid. This not only slowed down everyone a lot, but also meant that several people started to feel dizzy in the heat. Of course, you can't control the weather, but if the race had had a 9 am start like most races, this would not have been a very big issue. With a 3 pm start, it was a major issue!

This is a tough race with constantly undulating terrain. The course is not the most inspiring and you don't make it into central Helsinki until just over halfway. A couple of K's round the centre and you are heading back to the outskirts again. There are a number of positives though. Helsinki is generally a welcoming city (if expensive), frequent well stocked water stations, where there were pockets of support everyone was very encouraging and enthusiastic. Really great to finish in the Olympic Stadium and nice touch to have your name and time displayed on the electronic scoreboard as you cross the line. The medal was also nice and chunky and better than a lot of other big city marathon medals. Free entry and warm shower to clean up at the adjacent Olympic swimming pool also good. In 2014 HCM had a deal with a local pasta restaurant chain which was excellent value for pre race meal. Biggest negative was 3pm start - why wait till the hottest point of the day in summer to start the race? Much better if start time changed to 9am. Thankfully it clouded over about 4.30pm and temperature cooled off. Overall, still an enjoyable experience.

It seems the Helsinki City Marathon has improved from past years. Good atmosphere at the expo and before, during and after the race. Plenty of refueling available during the race and a variety of food/drink at the end. I guess, just like any marathon, you have to accept the weather on the day. 2013 happened to be good temp with little wind. The finish in the Olympic Stadium was special and the Finnish people offered lots of encouragement around the course.