This was the 6th year for the Carmel Marathon, the 2nd time that I have ran it. Other than one small change to the course, the course has stayed the same. But first let's start with the expo. The Expo is held at the Monon Community Center about a mile from where the race starts and finishes. The expo was open from 11-8 on Friday, the day before the race. You enter the expo and go straight to packet pick up which is quick and easy. There were about 20-30 vendors/races there to check out. If you wanted, you could be in and out in 5 minutes.

Race Day: if you stayed at one of the host hotels (except for one) you could take the shuttle bus to the start/finish and of course, back to the hotel after. We stayed at the one hotel that was not offered a shuttle so we drove. Parking was no problem and we parked at the garage less that a quarter mile away from the start.
Gear check is offered right by the finish shoot, and there was about a line of 40-50 portable toilets for pre race use. The race started at 7:30 with opening ceremonies starting at 7:15.

The course: the course was tougher than I remember with rolling hills. The course starts with the half and full running together for 3.5 miles. The course consists on roads, some neighborhoods, and bike trails. By he bike trails when it was just marathon runners were fine and had enough space to run on. At the 11 mile mark, the full and half combine again. After that, there was a lot of zig zagging to get around slower, even walking half marathon runners. The bike paths at this point were very tight and hard to pass. The course does get a little boring between miles 20-23 running through office parks. The course finishes up at down town Carmel right where it starts.

Aid Stations: Fir info read the pros and cons but I would like to see more aid stations.

Pros:
Well marked course
Mile markers were right on it seemed
Good use of bike trails
Aid stations had water and PowerAid
I believe one aid station had gels
Medals were real nice
Nice shirt
Good amount of post race food, and chocolate milk
The expo was easy to navigate. Not a large expo buts good amount of vendors. Also packet pickup was a breeze
Free race photos to download

Cons
I would have liked to have seen more aid earlyin the race. The first aid station came at 2.5 miles, followed by the next one at mile 5. I can understand why there wasn't any at mile 1, but with the heat, there need to one at every mile after mile 1
The very last aid station had 2 workers at it and both were pouring water and not handing any out. If you wanted water, you had to grab it off the table.
According to my wife, at the start it was extremely congested at the back.
I would like to see separate start times for the 5k/8k races than starting at the same time as the half and full. Allow the marathon and half marathon runners to spread out more.
This is not a knock on the back of the pack half marathon runners, but it gets very congested on the bike paths after the half and full combine again. It makes for a lot more zig zagging through traffic. The only way I can see to avoid this is to revamp the half course somehow.
This year, Carmel Marathon implemented a "Sprint to the finish." Basically, whoever runs the fastest last half mile compared to their average pace the rest of the race, wins $100. First of all, $100 is not worth registering for the race alone when you can pay near that for the race depending on when you register. 2nd, all you have to do (if you want to win) is slack off the rest of the race and just sprint the last half mile. Kind of defeats the purpose of the rest of the race. Just do away with this.