• Martha's Vineyard ,
    Massachusetts,
    United States
  • May
  • 26.2 miles/Marathon
  • Road Race
  • Event Website

Dee A

New Hampshire, United States
0 3
2018
"Martha's Vineyard HALF"
Overall
T-Shirts/SWAG
Aid Stations
Course Scenery
Expo Quality
Elevation Difficulty
Parking/Access
Race Management
Dee A's thoughts:

My friends and I were super excited for a girls’ weekend for the Martha’s Vineyard Half. (There was also a full option.) The weekend was cold, windy and on the verge of raining most of the time, which affected our experience slightly.

This is only the second year of the MVM race, and I think it’s still going through growing pains.

COURSE:
I really did like the course! We drove it the afternoon before to discover it was fairly flat. A few of the miles at the end were wide open with the ocean on both sides - beautiful, but much colder on a windy day. Not much crowd support, but also probably due to the weather. Good amount of water/Gatorade stops.

A couple cons:
- The second mile was run a bit on sand. Runners around me were trying to find the grassy patches so we wouldn’t twist our ankles.
- The starting waves. More are needed. The course path gets narrow quickly and it didn’t thin out right to make it work well. And each wave needs a pace range, not just “8:30.” Especially when the next one is “10:00 and up.” That’s a huge gap, and I was tripping over people who were slower or had already stopped to start walking. :/

PARKING/TRANSPORTATION:
This needs major work.

Since the race was point to point, there were shuttles - and transportation was a bit of a mess. My friends and I - and maybe 100 or so others - were waiting at a stop in the morning that had no bus come by. Someone called to find out where the bus was, and she was told that everyone was told that the stop had changed. We weren’t, and we had all been handed out a brochure the day before that said this was the spot. Luckily the “real” stop wasn’t too far away, and we arrived on time, though a little rattled.

With cold temperatures and winds, we hoped for better return transportation. This was even worse. They were supposed to arrive on the half-hour - and it didn’t. We were so cold - a friend’s lips were turning blue and my muscles were locking up - that we ended up splitting a van cab with a few others who were waiting, and we all overpaid like crazy.

SWAG:
Not bad! A tech shirt, a small one-strap backpack and a buff - all branded.

POST-RACE:
A missed opportunity! A simple little park directly across the street from the ocean - and there wasn’t anything to do. The MC was fantastic (he was at another half I recently ran), and there were a few snacks and a massage tent, but that was it. Since most people who ran weren’t from MV, it would have been great to give them a reason to stick around.

OVERALL:
All this being said, I wouldn’t write off this race. But maybe I’d take a few years off in hopes that the kinks would get worked out.

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