The Twin Cities marathon weekend is an excellent all-around event. Saturday is filled with fun family events and shorter distance races. I attended the expo on both days for the booths and informative seminars. Transportation and access are excellent with free light rail and shuttle buses (and they did not have crazy long waits). The marathon course is beautiful and fun. It had the best crowd support of any race I've run, with huge cheering block parties throughout the course, often handing out fruit, food, beer, mimosas, etc. The course really only has 1 significant hill, with enough other gentle elevation changes and turns to keep it interesting, mainly through nice neighborhoods and along lakes. I would totally run this race again and would highly recommend it. I did the Ultra Loony Challenge with the 5k and 10k on Saturday and came home with 2 tech t-shirts, a long sleeve tech, fleece pullover, 3 pairs of socks, and 4 medals, all nice stuff with a coherent theme.