First Ottawa Marathon for me and I came in from Washington State for it. If you’re bold, take advantage of the Lumberjack Challenge and do the 2K/5K/10K on Saturday and the Full on Sunday.

The Expo: At the Shaw Center, I walked there from my hotel. Held Thursday/Friday/Saturday. Picked up my bibs (kits in Canada) on Friday with no wait. Only swag per say in the bag was the shirts that you get for signing up. Good amount of vendors throughout the expo, even found my running shoes on sale, which was a perk.

Race morning: stay within walking distance to the race, parking seemed limited (also coming from someone who’s not local). I stayed what felt like a good 3/4 mile from the race. Gear check available, but not close to the finish if you thought about it and out of the way (off Lisgar and Cartier, which felt like a good 5-10 min walk in the opposite direction of where I needed to go to get back to the hotel).

Time: Full started at 7AM, Half at 9AM

Weather: cool, but warmed up quickly. I was the stupid one who forgot a throw away shirt and ended up dumping a good long sleeved shirt 14 miles in 😢.

The Course: some mild hills, but nothing to cry home about. It’d be nice to have some sort of course elevation map available, though I couldn’t find one on the website. You pass Parliament, the War Museum, War Memorial, Rideau and 24 Sussex. They did have ‘xtra mile’ crew at 35k and 40k to help get you through the last few miles. The last few kilometers were with the half marathon.

Aid stations: quite honestly, need some work. I feel like there was no real rhyme between the distances between them. I wish they would have been every 2K and based on prior reviews, this seems to be a recurring theme. I’d also argue that not everyone drinks Nuun (myself included). An idea would be to alternate Nuun and Gatorade/Powerade, I essentially went without electrolytes because Nuun doesn’t agree with my stomach what so ever.

The Finish/Post Race: needs some definite work. You were filtered into Confederation after getting your medal and cup of water/electrolytes. I finished in 4:49 and there was absolutely zero bottled water/chocolate milk etc in the food area for runners. Food was limited by the time i got there and was nearly out. Essentially half a banana that didn’t look good, half a bagel and bag of chips. There really needed some more options and if you’re going to hand out bags to put food in, it’d be easier to have it pre setup for runners to take and go