I ran the marathon in 2018. The Expo is well done with lots of good booths. The t shirt was really underwhelming. Add to that the fact that they adhere to the new trend of making one shirt that’s the same for all 3 distances: 10k, half, and marathon. It’s always disappointing to me.

The weather this year was drizzly and 50s at the start. Within an hour after the start the rain had stopped and the weather was nice for running. The course is pretty bleak a lot of the time, but hey, it’s downtown Cleveland. It’s also a fast course with only a few hills. There are some decent areas but a lot of it is through undesirable and bleak neighborhoods especially the first half or so. The aid stations were well done offering gels, water, and Powerade. My biggest beef with the aid stations is the utter dearth of port o johns after the start. I ran with my brother and he peeeled off to go under a bridge. I decided to wait. It was 6 more miles before I came to a toilet. Unacceptable.

The support and fans along the course were great. I was a tad underwhelmed how few were at the finish. Much of downtown was under construction and the finish line photos included a lot of construction barriers, scaffolding, and orange cones.

Overall I would say I ran this race because I grew up in Cleveland and wanted to run my hometown race. The management was good but the course is mostly bleak on potholed roads. Would much rather do a course that maybe starts downtown but includes a lot of miles through one of Northeast Ohio’s amazing Metroparks. I wish they’d had more and more frequent port a Johns. The shirt was underwhelming. I’m not sure I’d recommend this race to someone over some of the others I’ve run.