After 6 years of racing, I finally ran my first marathon!! I chose to run this particular one because I am originally from the St. Louis area. I have run a few other GO! St. Louis events, and this was definitely a favorite and probably one of the most organized events of theirs so far.

Expo: Easy to find area at the Chafeitz arena, but parking was definitely busy. There was parking available in a nearby parking lot for $5. I absolutely hate paying for parking, especially for a race expo. I was able to find a nearby spot on the street close to the expo. This wasn't the biggest expo that I've seen, but there was plenty to look at from some of the local running stores. I would like to see more of the bigger nearby races come to this expo.

T-shirt/swag: This year's t-shirt was a pullover jacket, which I loved! It fit me perfectly and appeared to be of good quality. Plus, it had a neat design of the city with the arch included on the bottom of it.

Parking: The course was moved to start/finish at the Arch, which was a great idea, and I hope they continue this new tradition. Although parking is more limited, they provided shuttles and heavily suggested people use the shuttles, which helped a lot with race day parking. I conveniently found a side street near the Arch. Once again, I avoided paying for parking...

The course: There were definitely a lot of hills, which is no surprise in St. Louis! The race course went through several areas of St. Louis, including Tower Grove park, Anheuser brewery, and Forest Park. It was very scenic overall, though some areas of St. Louis are not all that scenic. I like the two bridges aspect of the course at the beginning of the race, but the Illinois side of the course is not the prettiest area.

Race Management: The GO! St. Louis management was great for this race. They kept everyone update with a text messaging system and facebook page. They also included information on shuttles on their website. The one big issue that I had was not being able to find my pacers. I was aiming for a 4:30 time for my first marathon. I was in corral C, but I only saw pacers for the 4:00 and 4:10 times. After talking to a friend who also ran the half marathon, the 4:30 pacers were in corral E.

In the end, training for and running this marathon has been my biggest running accomplishment so far, and I've very happy with my end time of 4:24:57! I am definitely planning to run this marathon again!