the course is flat and fast.....up until about mile 11-15 where you enter a forest pre sever park and have to talk about 4 miles of steep hills and curves. If you did not prepare and do you research this could be an early "wall" for most runners. Luckily i drove the course the day before so i mentally knew what was ahead of me. after the hills its smooth sailing on flat roads to the finish.

the marathon had about 2,000 participants while the Half had about 14,000 so the first 8 miles was filled with other runners but after you do a lap through the legendary Chruchill Downs, the course get very very eye lonely. you don't pair back up with the half runners until the last mile or so, one thing the director was smart in doing was keeping the road divided for half runners and full runners so you don't have to doge and dive between the two races.

aid stations were plentiful along the course but the end of the race they only had cups of water not bottles.

Over all Louisville is a beautiful beautiful city and the race is perfect for first time marathoners looking for a fairly easy course. I would love to run this again in the future. And the cost is pretty minimal compared to most other marathons.

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