This race is a great home away from home race. It has great crowd support along the entire route, even with Kalamazoo not being the biggest city. The race starts out at 8am, giving people a little extra time in the morning to get ready, though it did get a little toasty outside later in the race. The race runs all around Kalamazoo, Michigan. Some of the most popular points being Western Michigan University, Asylum Lake Preserve, along the Kalamazoo River, and through Spring Valley Park. This race is not the flattest course, but is still reasonably flat enough to set a PR. It does have a killer hill right at mile 25.5 that you need to be prepared for, but overall a fairly flat course.

But the best part about running the Kalamazoo marathon was the amazing community involvement with the race! The different neighborhoods came out to cheer and some even set up their own aid stations to help the runners. I couldn't resist stopping at the Bacon Station at mile 15! There were also neighborhoods giving out Bell's beer, girl scout cookies, gummie bears, PBR's, and so much more. I think I gained weight during this race.

This race also offers a very experienced pacing team. I was fortunate to talk to several pacers along the way, and they all had a lot of experience and were great conversationalists.

Lastly, if you feel up for it, definitely check out the different booths set up for after the race and take advantage of the free meal ticket. They served up roasted chicken, corn, potatoes, brownies, and sodas or water. That is if you still have room in your stomach after all the snacking along the race path.

In short here are the positives and negatives of the Kalamazoo Marathon:

POSITIVES: Community support, experienced pacing crew, food along the course and after the race, free race photos!

NEGATIVES: Only had water at several water stops (ran out of GU brew), the last hill is a killer