Oh Milwaukee. I want so badly to like the hometown race, but there are way too many issues here. But let’s start with the good first.

The expo was vastly better than it has been in past years. More organized and way more spacious. The fact that the Marathon field was about half what it was in past years probably helped with the crowds. But it was quick and easy to get our bib and shirt.

And speaking of the shirt, it’s awesome. Definitely one of the best. The weird thing is that it’s a Finisher shirt...but you get it at packet pickup. Hope you don’t drop the race.

The Aid Stations were also excellent again this year. Water and Gatorade, and volunteers made it known which cups had which. And even with an early start, they were all out there. Awesome volunteers.

The medal was also top notch, I really liked it.

But now, for the bad.

Moving the start line (again) put the race on the Lower East Side where parking is a nightmare. In fact, the start line was different than what the website shows. And this isn’t the only area in the course description that is different than the course. But parking is a zoo.

The porta pod situation was good in the sense that there were plenty. Bad in the sense that they were all on grass, which was almost all mud. You either had to go to the bathroom, or not get your shoes wet and muddy before the race. The mud also was an issue for the post race. I’ve never seen so many people clear out from a Full or Half so quickly. The Runner Recovery tent literally looked like it had been set up halfway and then forgotten.

And the course. Last year, the marathon got a lot of flack for being about .6 miles long. Well, the race made up for it this year as the race was about .6 SHORT this year. Every single person I talked to registered the same 25.6 distance. All mile markers were on track until the Hank Aaron Trail, when we skipped from the 21 Mile Marker to the 23 Mile Marker. We never passed 22.

I did know a handful of people who ended up with 27 due to getting lost in Washington Park, which I can definitely see happening.

Also, there were no timing mats on the course. There were a couple areas that were supposed to pick up splits, but if you ran too far away from the scanner you didn’t get picked up. This makes the course SUPER easy to cut if you wanted to. I passed a handful of runners twice without them ever passing me.

So yeah, this isn’t a great experience. They screwed up the course the last two years. If you want to run a good marathon in Milwaukee, run the Lakefront Marathon instead.