Park City Marathon (#13) Race Ratings!

Ratings...
Registration Fee: $65 (Early Reg., $75 after)

Overall Race Rating (weighted): 3.0/5.0
Average Calculated Rating: 3.3/5.0
~ The course was a big determinant here. Such a flat, straight, course with so much heat and no shade was definitely hard. The area, however, is definitely worth running 26 miles to see! Beautiful mountains and great host resort!

Race Director: Let's place race director...
~What would I have changed if I were race director? The first thing would be the course... too much open space with a very hot sun-- Although, I now know what it feels like to be cooked. Also, GU! If any races choose anything other than GU they're crazy. Post race food... for 400 marathoners and a lot more half-marathoners, you need to get some bagels and more fruit and sugary item. Port-a-johns were far and few between in the last 6 miles (pretty important spot I would say)-- add more at the end and don't worry about them every other mile in the first 10.

Event Organization: 5.0/5.0 (now broken into 2 parts, see below as well) As far as "event organization" we'll go ahead and include things like Host hotel, website use, ease of travel to the event and to the actual race, etc.
The EVENT organization was great. The airport (Salt Lake City) was large, but still easy to get into. Park City is only a 20 minute drive from the airport and I believe the hotels have shuttles. Also, the host resort was fabulous with good prices and hot tubs on the balconies! The start/finish is right outside the hotel doors with a GREAT restaurant adjacent... Maxwell's East Coast Eatery (great homemade pastas and 5 am pre-marathon breakfast served!). There is also a Massage Envy on sight for post-marathon stress relief.

Some pictures from the hotel :)

(Picture left to right: 1) View from our balcony- Olympic Luge slides, 2) View OF our balcony-- hot tub and all! 3) View of our bathroom-- LOVE this bathroom!)

Race Organization: 3.0/5.0
The race organization was decent. There were lots of water stops, and port-a-johns, but there were a couple of downsides too. Hammer Gels were provided (ick! I hate them almost as much as my pure HATRED for Carb-boom, scratch that, I don't even want to mention that name on here!). Also, they were supposed to have snack at certain miles in the race and they ran out :( No snacks for me. And the post-race food after was scanty... although some great peaches!

Course: 2.5/5.0
~ Not a great course, but it has to be hard to plan something that loops around large mountains. There were a lot of long periods of gravel trails that just went straight for miles and there was VERY little shade-- not great since most of the race was run in 80 or 90 degree heat. The mountains and the different "park cities" we went through were really cute. Kind of boring, but if you like very quiet & scenic, this is the course for you!

Spectators: 4.0/5.0
~ There were long runs of empty gravel trails, which spectators couldn't really get to. Where there could be, there were some spectators, but it seemed like a lot of them were out to cheer on a particular person and didn't really clap or anything for anybody else. This was NOT everybody... there were some areas that were fun and the water stop people seemed REALLY excited about their jobs! They did everything the could to help us in the heat.

Pace Group: /5.0
~ DNE and didn't need

Runner/Corrals:

5.0/5.0
~ No corrals, obviously, but the runners were pretty nice. It was extremely hot and I know IIII wasn't the most pleasant person to run by! Didn't want to talk at all... MB found a friend though (what's new). Also, when the man went down, about 10 runners stopped and immediately started CPR-- handing off every couple rounds. I'll give them a 5.0 for that!

Expo: 1.0/5.0
~ The registration table had a SMALL table next to it with things like: T-shirt, picture frames, old age group awards, old race t-shirts... WAIT! Did I just say "OLD AGE GROUP AWARDS?" Yes, yes I did. They had some leftover age group winner awards that you could purchase.... this is definitely bizarre! The race was small (about 500 marathoners), but it had a BIG group of halfies and it was big enough to have SOME race gear or goodies. Would have been nice to pick up some GU or sports beans... little things like that. Its UTAH for goodness sakes, every other store out there is an outdoor sports store... you couldn't find one that wanted to sell stuff at the registration/expo? F for effort there Park City!

Swag: 2.5/5.0 (and that's rounding up!)
~T-Shirt... HOLY GREEN! The womens Tshirt were NEON green! Like, I'm going to blind drivers as I run past them outside. Like, I have to ask my running group to bring sunglasses when we run together. Like, I may get confused for a crossing guard or an airport control person! The mens were dark green, with the same bright green stripes down the side under arms. They were ok. Sweat wick material, thin and easy to run in. mmmm... 2.5?

~Medals (Pictured left): MB is going to flip out but... I'm sorry, they're plastic! It's a cute idea. They are supposed to be sun catchers, but they are plastic and kind of ugly and on lanyard string... the handmade-ness was thoughtful and definitely different, but kind of cheap looking (sorrrrry). They also came in lots of ugly color combos (eek) 2.0 out of 5.0-- 2.0 for effort only

~ As soon as you were finished you were handed a PINK CARNATION (Gamma Phi Beta!!!) with your medal. Definitely Adds a+1 point

~ Goodie Bag: Not much to the goody bag. I think there was a random health bar in there, but that was about it. I know they were trying to be more green by NOT hanging out papers, but it could have been nice to have gift cert's to some of the local shops and eateries that helped put on the marathon. -1 pt

(Below: MB & I Post Race)