Both the full marathon and half marathon start within 10 minutes of each other at 7am on the second Sunday morning in November. I ran the half marathon this year, and it was a fun and well-run event.

Drove the couple of hours up from the Chicago area and stayed at the Madison Concourse Hotel, very nice accommodations at the race discount only a couple of blocks from the start and finish lines. Nice area along State Street for exploring and food without spending too much time on your feet.

Race expo was within walking distance too. Nothing special, but the volunteers were quick, competent and friendly. About a dozen vendors, with some nice official race gear from Greenlayer.

You'd expect a race in Madison in November to be cool, and it was: 32 degrees at start time, but with almost no wind and a bright sun on the rise. Decided to go with a singlet, Louva arm warmers and gloves up top; shorts and compression sleeves below; walked to the start line in a space blanket and was fine.

The start and the finish are on opposite sides of the state capitol building which makes for a pretty setting. Plenty of room in the start chute. The race is small enough that there are no seeded corrals, my only suggestion is that they put up pace signs as the pace teas didn't elevate their hand-held signs til late and I got caught behind the 2:30 group even though I thought I was standing far enough towards to the front to be with the 2:00 group where I wanted to be. Not a tremendously big deal, but the first couple of miles are congested and it wasn't easy to work my way up.

The course starts on a downhill through the downtown area, then becomes rolling hills or flats for most of the first half. As experienced runners know it's usually not a good idea to bank time early in the race, but this one is an exception--the more difficult hills are in the second half, especially a couple in the Maple Bluff area around miles 8-9. That last one is worthy of San Francisco or Austin, both for steepness and length. Very pretty view of the Capitol from the crest though, almost makes it worth it.

Most of the course outside of downtown is main streets or residential neighborhoods, with some parks thrown in. Not always the prettiest or most interesting scenery, but it was fine--it was a bright sunny day, there were enough cheering spectators on the course to make it fun, and time went by quickly. Until those hills.

You'll notice the uphills on the run-in to town, especially the last semi-serious hill in mile 11 or 12. Once you make the sharp turn onto State Street, the crowd will carry you up that mild hill to the finish, which is lined with spectators and noise.

Some nice touched in the chute: a PR bell, which apparently got broken by the number of runners who set PRs; some very delicious chocolate milk, which you'd expect in Wisconsin; and Panera Bread was there handing out a choice of three different kinds of sandwiches along with chips and a cookie. Beer tent for those who wanted one. Well done.

Course marshals and aid station volunteers were well-trained and well-staffed. Cheerful, friendly, lifeblood of the event.

Race shirts were kinda nice, but the medals were AWESOME. Attractive, heavy, nice ribbons too. Definitely one for the collection--they seem to really care about their medals for this race. And is there anything better than FREE beautiful professional race photos? Well done.

Shot a headmounted GoPro video of (almost) the whole course, my first time running with the extended battery pack for a half marathon. Should have had three hours of filming time, but wouldn't you know--turned it on 20 minutes before the start and I guess with the cold weather it ate into the battery life--the camera cut out exactly at the 13 mile marker, with a tenth of a mile and less than a minute to go to the finish. Man. So cut to black--don't stop believin'. Also had some audio issues as the internal mic kept taking over from my external mic, so there's the problematic GoPro case clicking noise through a lot of this, you might want to turn the sound down in those areas. But technical difficulties aside, you can get a good idea of the race from skipping around through the two hours posted on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tC0lgRcxcJ8

All in all this was an excellent race experience. Great town, interesting and sometimes challenging course, and solid race management. Very much recommended.