This was my first marathon ever and it was tough! The wind was in your face the whole time and the hills are tricky! That said, I enjoyed it very much. Aide stations were perfect, every 2 miles at the start and half way through they had them every mile. It really broke up the route for me. There are plenty of hotels near the finish and start (good because next year they're reversing the route!). The expo was pretty bare, I didn't purchase anything except for body glide. My dad came with to the race and he had no trouble driving along the route and spectating, but be warned. It's a boring route. They had specific cheer zones set up, but sometimes it was pretty barren. Hard to do for your first marathon. My watch and the signs were off pretty much the whole run. At the last mile sign, my watch said we still had over 1.5 miles to go!! The last stretch was so cute. They most have had local elementary school kids make signs and, oh my gosh, they were adorable! It really made the last stretch pass by quick. When I got to the finish (after a decent sized hill), they had run out of mylar blankets. This was rough because I was counting on one. My temperature always drops after races and I freeze! I was particularly irritated when I saw 5k and half runners walking around with them or marathoners with 2 or 3! I even saw a guy with 4 wrapped around his body. My dad had to give me the shirt off his back to warm me up, but this guy can have 4 mylar blankets. I asked someone about it and she was very apologetic (thankful for good volunteers!) and said they underordered by about 30%, which means over 200 marathon finishers wouldn't have received one. They also didn't have any food at the finish. I got a water bottle and a cup of chocolate milk. It would have been nice to get some Gatorade or something. I think the post race food was at another location. The medal was pretty sweet. If they can fix the problems, I would go back but I wouldn't recommend to another first time marathoner!