Kiawah was my first marathon, and it was a great one!

Running Background:
I have not been a serious runner (aka: never thought in a million years I would run a marathon...in fact I often laughed when people posed the question) for a long time. I ran 2 half marathons about a year before signing up for Kiawah.

Planning/Stay:
My sister and I signed up for the race and began looking at lodging options. We wanted to stay close to the race start and opted for a quaint little villa about 1/4 mile from the start (Tennis Club), which was awesome come race morning. There are many options for villa and house rental around the island >>skip the hotel and get a place.

Pre-Race:
>>Expo
There was definitely a lot to shop around for...fuel, socks, marathon apparel, but my one and only complaint of this weekend was picking up my shirt.
>>Marathon Shirts
I must say the race shirt was awesome, and being a first time marathoner I was stoked > cool, long sleeve tech marathon shirt =WIN. When I signed up for the race they offered unisex sizes only and about 3 days before the race they announced they had just gotten gender sized shirts. NOT COOL! I ordered a medium unisex shirt, which means upon arrival to shirt pick-up I received a Baby Gap sized shirt. This usually don't tick me off b/c usually races are prepared for unhappy runners paired with unexpected sizing issues, but the volunteers were not pleasant AT ALL when I told them my issue. I got sent to table to table with NO HELP. I was asked to put my name on 2 separate lists with the promise that they would mail me the correct size or call me if they happened to my size in post race.

Not surprisingly I got no phone call. I had to contact the office several times to get an answer out of anyone. Finally I got someone to mail me a shirt in what was thought to be the correct size...I explicitly told them the size I needed...and I got the same Women's M in the mail. Contacted them again and they required me to send it back before offering to fix the problem they created. More than 2 months post race and I'm still waiting on my shirt in the mail. Not cool.

Race Day:
The weather was quite cold for the Dec 13, 2014 start. Tons of energy and music for a good pump up sesh.
>>The Course
The race course is BEAUTIFUL. It felt like I was running through a Garden & Gun magazine. When running 26.2 miles isn't taking your breath away the gorgeous house, the golf course and greens are. I have read that often times when there is a half and a full marathon offered crowd support almost disappears; this was not the case at Kiawah. The racing crowd definitely thins out, but the crowd and
race support are awesome.

>>Post race:
The grub post race was awesome. Actual food (quinoa, soup, rice, cornbread and beer*) was a great treat after getting a nice little massage and stretching. They have professional massage therapists on site- put your bib number down and you get a nice 15 min athletic massage.
*extra cost

Over all the race and the running were fantastic. Highly recommended race, just hope that you actually get a race shirt- HA.