I grew up going to Kensington Metropark-- my parents used to take me there to canoe, to hike, and to feed the birds and the nature center. When I was searching for a July or August marathon, and I saw this one pop up, I was pretty darn excited. The price was right, the timing was right, so I signed up. I went canoeing there the day before the race with my dad, and my excitement began to build when I saw the course. It's almost all on the bike path that runs around Kent Lake in the park--beautiful scenery, lots of tree coverage, and a good amount of hills (I would compare the elevation gain to Barrington, IL--lots of rolling hills, a couple of big-ish climbs, but nothing unmanageable).

The race started at 7am--I was a little worried about this when I saw what the temperature was supposed to be for the day, knowing that I would likely be running well into the 11am hour. Packet pickup was the day of. For a small race (only 100 and change registered for the marathon, 300 for the half which started half an hour later), the pickup was disorganized. It was a bunch of high school kids who didn't seem to have been given any direction handing out bib numbers. When I got into the corral to start, I heard a man behind me say "Well I don't know who's number I got, but this isn't the one they emailed me with." Ooops.

The really nice thing about the course is that it loops around the lake twice. The park access also makes it really easy for spectators (although they weren't very many). My parents were able to park and hang out on the side where I would pass them at miles 12 & 20, with plenty of shade, bathrooms, and picnic tables nearby. Starting out the race, I had no idea where the aid stations would be. There were none shown on the course map, and in the course description, it only said "aid stations every 1.5-3 miles." I decided to run with a water bottle (as most of the people doing the full did), and thank god I did. The aid stations were really far apart, which is bad news for a full marathon in July. With the setup of the park, and the fact that the course looped around the lake more than once, there was no reason there couldn't have been more.

Water became a real issue when I hit mile 17--I came upon two women who were trying to help a runner who had gone down, and gone down hard. He could barely speak and didn't know his name or what day it was. We were more than a mile in either direction from an aid station, so I stopped to try and help, and give the man some of my water. One of the women was dialing 911 as the other woman was trying to get ahold of the Park police. It didn't seem like there was much of an emergency protocol in place, as the ambulances were coming from nearby hospitals, and were having trouble finding us. When an ambulance finally did come (almost half an hour after the man went down), they almost left because they thought they were supposed to be responding to another downed runner elsewhere. When you decide to host a marathon during what is notoriously the hottest week in July, you have a responsibility to the runners to 1. Have plenty of water, and 2. Have plenty of easily available medical care. At this point I was very disappointed at what had seemed to be a very promising race. Once I started running again, I made the decision to drop at mile 20 where my parents were. Finishing the race would have put me at well over 5 hours, and I was already mentally and physically exhausted. I could hear ambulances on the course every couple of minutes, and from what I heard people were dropping like flies in the heat. You pass the start/finish at about mile 18, before you start the last loop around the lake, so I informed some race officials of the downed runner.

This is only the 2nd year this race has been put on--it has potential, but I think it needs to make some pretty major changes. The course is wonderful--but the race (at least the full marathon) needs to start earlier. I would have gladly started that race at 6am, if it meant avoiding a little bit of the heat. There also need to be way more aid stations--every 1.5-3 miles in July doesn't cut it, they need to be every 1.5 miles AT THE MOST. Third--there needs to be a better emergency protocol in place--that might mean hiring a private ambulance company for the day and familiarizing them with the course. Half an hour wait for medical attention for someone in really bad shape is unacceptable. Also having the full names of the participants on the bibs would have been a huge help--especially with the bibs being all mixed up at the beginning.

I plan on emailing the race directors to tell them everything I've said here. I think this could be a really great, low key, scenic race. If some changes were made, I would consider running it again.