New Hampshire Marathon.... Race Ratings (Part 1 of the Double)

New Hampshire Marathon ~ October 3, 2009

Ratings... Registration Fee: $40 (Early Reg., $50 on race day)

Overall Race Rating (weighted): 3.8/5.0

Average Calculated Rating: 3.7/5.0

~ Overall this was a fun race with a great course! It could use some help with race organization and definitely with the free swag. But you're only paying $40 so if you're looking for a great course at a low price, this is it! Oh and if you want a T-shirt sign up early (as they req. to order the T's)... and if you want one in the size you ordered, show up to check-in early-- and remember its on a Sat so you'll need to get there friday afternoon. If you're planning to make this part of a double... New Hampshire and Maine in 1 weekend... its a GREAT first double! You get a lot of variety from the courses so your legs won't hurt TOO much. :)

Race Director: Let's place race director...

~What would I have changed if I were race director?  CARS! The roads need to be cleared at least on one side of the road for the whole race. I know the number of participants increased 3-fold this year, but the cars should be a concern no matter the number of participants. They also need to get more police help for the cars SPEEDING down the backside of the course. The people almost seemed mad that the runners were in the way... hit a runner, 100 pts! The T-shirts! If you're required to register early to get a shirt, they should have the size you ordered!

Event Organization: 3.0/5.0 (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.

~ This event grew drastically this year... likely due to all the maniacs that wanted to do the NH/ME double that weekend. I'm not so sure they were ready for it. There wasn't too much in line for hotels, travel, etc, and the website was kind of limiting. To travel to this race you had to go through airports at least an hour away. I stayed with our friend Pete and the rest of the galloway group, so I had no experience with hotels in the area... it WAS nice that ME was so close and if you wanted, you could try your luck at a double marathon!!!

Race Organization: 4.0/5.0

~ Definitely a smaller race. The course had pleanty of water stops and had some food at stops as well. I noticed that they had REALLY good flavored "sports drink." I'm not sure what it was but I really liked it! Potties were a plus all over! Before the race we all met at a local school gym, so there were lots of indoor bathrooms we could use! Much better than outdoor porta-a-johns (esp since it was raining). Also, there were VERY well-marked potty-stops all along the way with large signs pointing us to the stops.  The end of the race had a pretty good post-race display of food, including Dunkin Donut Munchkins and pizza!!! Yummmm. The course seemed very well marked with mile markers. The only really bad part of the race was the car-control. Some of the race had half of the road blocked off, but the cars would go FLYING by. There were also parts of the race that were NOT blocked off at all and you were forced to run on the side of the road that had a pretty good slant... causing a VERY large blister on my foot.

Course: 4.7/5.0
~ If I weren't doing a double, this would have been a GREAT course for a PR. The course starts and ends with nice large rolling hills with a middle area of smaller rolling to flat. It provided a lot of variety for the legs and was pretty as well... running around a large lake. It was esp nice since the leaves are just starting to change in the NH area!!!

Spectators: 4.0/5.0

~ There were spectators sprinkled throughout the course, but there were no big areas where people could watch-- usually the side of the road, if they could avoid getting run over by the cars flying by. One thing I did note were the people at the water stops... they were SO supportive and legitimately LOVED watching and cheering for the runners! It was so nice to come up to a water stop with that sort of support. Also, I was STARVING by mile 14 and by mile 21 I thought I was going to pass out before I finished. But, at a water stop I asked if they had anything to eat and they ran into their car and grabbed their personal snacks... oatmeal bars, peanut butter bars, lots of stuff!!! They were SO nice!!!

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

Runner/Corrals:

4.5/5.0

~ There were no corrals but I found the runners delightful!!! There was a part of the course that is out and back where you pass other runners. Most runners were Maniacs of 50-Staters so MOST people appeared to be taking it easy on this one-- saving themselves for Maine the next day. Everyone seemed to be having fun. I got to see all of my Galloway group that was up for the weekend at different points.

Expo: /5.0
~ No Expo...

Swag: 2.0/5.0
~T-Shirt... OOOH yeah, the t-shirt was cotton, 1 size larger than I ordered, and not very pretty. We'll go with a 1.8.
~Medals: The medal was nice-- a square with the state of NH on it. 3.0

~ Goodie Bag: There wasn't much to the goody bag, but this was also a very small race.