I lived in Philadelphia for 5 years and ran the Philadelphia 1/2 Marathon in 2009, 2010 and 2012. The expo is pretty decent in terms of race expos, a variety of stores in the city have discounts marathon weekends and it's an overall good race. In 2012, they accepted an additional 3,000 runners for the marathon who got hurricained out of the NYC Marathon, if that says anything.

The half marathon course is relatively flat, minus a tad of some hills around miles 6.5-8 isn. It only seemed worse in 2009 because of a rip roaring ITB injury. It starts and ends in front of the Art Museum and Mayor Nutter is always at the stop. Be prepared to give Bart Yasso a high 5 at the end!