With record breaking temperatures in Buffalo, the Buffalo Marathon went above and beyond to prepare and keep runners safe.

Registration: Registration was easy online. Registration was open until the race filled up—which ended up being a few weeks before the race.

Expo: I didn’t get to spend as much time at the expo as I would have liked but I did get the Run Buffalo t-shirt I’d been eyeing for months! The vendors were mostly local road races but they had a great lineup of speakers that I missed including a live, virtual talk with Meb Keflezighi.

Swag: Love the long sleeve, half-zip shirts! Warning – women’s sizes ran small. Also loved the Buffalo Marathon temporary tattoos on the number pick up tables!

Start Line: Runners lined up at the start based on predicted race pace. Everything seemed to go smoothly. The starter was ready to fire the gun at 6:28 but held us back to start at 6:30 on the dot. The start line fireworks were a surprise!

Course: Flat and the potential to be really fast! A couple of little out and backs, around the parks through the neighborhoods and down by the waterfront for a nice tour of Buffalo. Lots of spectators out cheering and spraying runners with hoses.

Finish Line: 5 Buffalo Bills players were there to hand out medals? Could it get any better than that? They even were calling runners by their first names for a nice, personal touch to make every runner feel special.

Weather: Average race temps are in the 60s (it’s Memorial Day Weekend) but in 2016 we battled the heat. Thank goodness for the 6:30am start time because my iPhone was already saying 70 degrees with 85% humidity while we were waiting around to run.

Aid Stations: The race added aid stations to every mile on the second half of the marathon course to deal with the heat. They also brought in trucks to make sure all water stations did not run out of water and added ice stations. One of my best decisions of the day was grabbing an icy towel at Mile 10!

Food: Just past the finish line there were tables with water, bananas and oranges. You had to go inside the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center for the post-race party featuring Mile 27 beer brewed by the Flying Bison for the Buffalo Marathon.

Other: I love the city of Buffalo! On the right day, this course has PR written all over it. Course is great, crowd support was great – all we need is perfect running weather. I’m coming back for you Buffalo Half Marathon! I want to ring the finish line PR bell!

You can read my 2016 Buffalo Half Marathon Race Recap on my personal blog Run Jen Run:
http://www.jenrunsfastblog.com/2016/05/race-report-buffalo-half-marathon.html