I Love doing the Akron Half Marathon! My first marathon was during their 10 year anniversary in 2012. Their course and expo are always well managed and well marked. The volunteers are awesome and throughout the course you have some entertainment from local bands that set up on the sidewalks and play for you and encourage you along the course!

The only downfall to the Akron marathon is that there are no hotels near the race. They all have been purchased by the University of Akron and are dorms now. However, most hotels around the area have shuttles that will take you to and from the race.

This race was the first year that Cedar Point hosted the Run and Ride events. I go to Cedar Point every year and thought why not race while Im there too. Cedar Point gives discount entry fees for the weekend for runners and family/friends, as well as discounted parking prices. These are a great perk.

Once the race started, it was a small event, the course started out very well marked. But once we got into downtown Sandusky, I felt like I lost the pack. The race had mile markers up until about mile 5, then it was a guess of where to go next. There was no one from mile 5 to mile 10 on where to go.

It was still a fun race and great pricing for the race and entry into the park, however, hopefully next race they have it more marked or more volunteers to direct runners on which direction to go next.

I went to Walt Disney World in January 2014 for the first time. I wasn't planning on doing a race while I was there, but the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend just so happened to be the weekend I was there. So why not right? I am a huge fan of everything Disney so this was perfect! We stayed at the Saratoga Resort, and while everything was well organized and well run, the staff at Saratoga had different directions to get to the expo than anyone else. It took us over an hour to get from the Resort to the Expo because of directions that were incorrect from our front desk staff. Once we got to the Expo we came to find out that we could have gone right from the Resort to the Expo by using the special transportation given for the weekend. Other than that, the weekend was great!

The race wasn't too challenging and there were all kinds of runner levels there. All the volunteers who were there were amazing! And of course seeing all the characters made the race one of my favorite!