Latest reviews by Jamie

(2018)
"Jack and Jill = AWESOME"
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you can read a very detailed review about the event and my personal experience here, https://jammiekomadina.com/2018/08/02/jack-jills-downhill-marathon-event-review-and-race-recap/

but, in short
Bib pickup easy, swag awesome (I rarely like the shirts, these tanks are wicked, AND we got a buff and a bag as well) the parking situation was great, shuttle was standard and organized, course fantastic, tunnel was cool, aid stations every 2 miles which was great even on a hot day, medals awesome, i absolutely loved the race. I had some curiosity about what it would be like to run on non-pavement but it was fine, I wouldn't have liked it in a flat or rolling race but the help of some gravity made it find to keep control of the pace even with gravel road beneath the feet!

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(2017)
"35th Annual CIM!"
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https://jammiekomadina.com/2017/12/07/the-35th-annual-cim/

here is a link to my full race recap. I LOVED this race. Awesome expo, swag, organized transportation, good number of aid stations with water, nuun and four with clif shots, picturesque finish line, huge beautiful medals! the course is, in my opinion perfect! good variety, no hills that I would consider challenging, just a good mix. Net downhill, but wouldn't not describe this as a downhill race. LOVE IT and i'll be back!!! you must go!

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(2017)
"2017 Fall Classic 1/2 at UBC !!"
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https://jammiekomadina.com/2017/11/17/the-runvan-fall-classic-1-2-at-ubc/

cut and paste the link for my full review! this race is awesome. UBC is so beautiful. The RUNVAN gloves are sweet and way better than a shirt, in my opinion. The course is hard, there are some long hills. Not super steep, but many. That being said there are lots of downhills too! The weather at this time of year on the west coast of BC can be pretty sketchy, but that's part of the fun. Being badass and braving the rain, wind and cold. The post-race food was amazing. Having the student union building to hang out in right til the start, and right after finishing, was amazing. Love it. Fantastic small race. I'll go back.

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(2017)
"Alaska Airlines 2017 Rock'n'Roll Seattle Marathon!"
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THIS RACE WAS SO AWESOME and I feel like the Rock’n’Roll’ness of it was just bonus because it was already such a cool route in a wicked city!

We arrived to the expo at the CenturyLink Field Event Centre in the early afternoon on Saturday to get our bibs, shoe tags, shirts and shuttle passes (purchased online before hand) and everything was organized and problem free. The race shirts are basic black t-shirts but I guess that’s safe…imagine trying to please twenty thousand people? The expo was pretty big, busy, and in a cool venue in an accessible spot. I’m not usually one to purchase things at the expo, but there was a huge merch area of Brooks gear, what looked like a gait anaysis treadmill station (with a big lineup) and then past that section was the exhibitor area. There were lots of free samples, and the girl manning the JellyBelly Sport Beans table LOADED us up after we obeyed the “2 per person” sign. LOL. Good karma! We also scored free sunglasses which I love.

Both of us woke up on Sunday at 4am having slept WELL, which is so unusual for me the night before a big event! After getting ready and eating breakfast we took another Uber over to the CenturyLink/Safeco (finish) area to hop on a shuttle to the starting line at Husky Stadium. A sticker on our bibs that was given to us at the expo when checking in with the pre-paid shuttle table was all we had to show the driver to get on the bus. We had no problems or waits and arrived to the start area by 5:45 for the 6:30 start. I heard stories about shuttles getting lost one year and the race start being delayed, so it was nice that it was so organized!

There were good tunes blasting when we arrived and it was exciting from the get go. I didn’t see any obvious signage pointing out where the gear check was specifically located, but it’s easy enough to follow the crowds or ask, and we did both and found the bag check UPS Trucks towards the very back of the start chute. Checking gear was simple and quick, but waiting for a portopotty after that was not. It was just so busy and slow because there wasn’t really an oranized lineup system, but regardless we both were able to use the bathrooms and head into our corral by 6:20, and we didn’t start running until after 6:30 since we obviously weren’t in corral number one! No rushing and no panic.

Go time! Speaking for the full marathon course, it was so scenic!!! We ran across Montlake Bridge over the shipping canal, through the beautiful Washington Park Arboretum, south along Lake Washington with lake and mountain views, and ran a the full loop of Seward Park. The middle section was along Ranier Ave and Dearborn Street back towards the Centurylink/Safeco area. Then the last quarter of the race was a big out-and-back with amaaaazing views of the ocean plus all of downtown, running across the Alaskan Way Viaduct (apparently this is the last year it will be part of the course) and then all the way up towards the west side of Lake Union, getting to pass the ferries, Seattle Great Wheel, aquarium, and the Space Needle along the way, twice! SO GREY’S ANATOMY.

There were lots of live music set-ups along the way, and I loved running past and hearing covers of Foo Fighters, Passion Pit and I can’t remember what else. I knew coming to this event that Rock’n’Roll Seattle is not one of the most rock’n’rollie of the race series, meaning I didn’t come expecting the intensity of say, RnR Vegas, San Diego or Nashville, but that’s not WHY I registered. I went because Seattle is awesome and the event is big and fun, and it was easy for me to get there. If you are looking for a mind-blowing Rock’n’Roll experience, I probably wouldn’t suggest this one because I know it’s not one of the biggest or most popular, and you might be dissapointed theme-wise, but overall this event is SWEET. Also, if you really feed off of spectator support, I didn’t find it to be overly involved in that sense, so just something to keep in mind.

As for difficulty, I barely noticed any major hills during the first half, aside from literally about a 100m steep part up to where the half-way timing mat was located. In reality, there was a gradual incline for about 5k leading up to the half-way mark and that definitely took more out of me than I was noticing at the time. Sneaky! I ran with the 4hr pace group for the entire first half, but at exactly half way I had a stomach emergency and had to make my first ever pit stop during a marathon. One in five so far, not bad. This didn’t throw me off much time-wise, but unfortunately my stomach was fairly cramped up for almost an hour after that…it interefered with my plan, but it did not mess with how much I was enjoying myself! I had lost my crew but continued on. My elusive 3:59 goal wasn’t going to happen, that’s for sure, but I’ve let that go now until the fall. I kept going and enjoyed the experience and worked on my mental game as it continued to get more difficult.

The next section was mostly flat and the less interesting part of the course, and finally, my ass got handed to me by the final 12-ish kilometeres where you see those three giant bumps!

Finishing along the viaduct and back into the stadium area was seriously so cool. I loved this course! The finish-chute wasn’t anything to write home about but there were lots of photographers as usual and quite a lot of snacks, CHOCOLATE MILK (my favourite) and Gatorade and water. Marcie was there for my finish, and she found me at the exit of the finish area and we went to grab my gear (easy) and head to the concert area, which wasn’t very busy at all but had an awesome energy.

There was a free beer ticket on the bottom of each bib, so lucky Marcie, she got two free Michelobs hahaha. Full marathon finishers also received a finisher’s jacket, which in the pics online that I saw before hand looked super cheesy, but they actually are kind of awesome! I won’t be rocking mine around daily life or anything, but it’s a really good wind breaker and tucks up super small. Useful swag, and so great to have it to throw on as another layer while hanging around being sweaty and getting progressively colder.

In summary, the Alaska Airlines Rock’n’Roll Seattle Marathon & Half Marathon was a really fun, exciting event. I love big, busy running events, and they said there were approximately 18,000 runners lined up at the start line on Sunday to run either the half or full. The course was so great with some cool on-course music and features, although challenging and maybe not for PR chasing, the medals rock, the organization was without fault, and Seattle is just a very cool place! The expo was basic, and the post-race concerts didn’t seem too exciting, but the finish venue and general area was super cool. I had a really great weekend and I would definitely run this race again and I recommend it to anyone to who has easy access to Seattle!

see my full blog post at https://jammiekomadina.com/2017/06/20/alaska-airlines-rocknroll-seattle-marathon-2017/

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(2017)
"2017 Calgary Marathon"
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I'll start off by saying it wasn't the best race experience I've had, but overall my weekend was very fun!

Before race weekend that had me a little skeptical was when I emailed to have my predicted finish time updated slightly, (I was registered over 6 months in advance) and the reply informed me that the start chute is self-seeding so I'd be lining up wherever I wanted. Um, the half marathoners, full marathoners AND the 50k ultra runners all start at the same time in this race. No corrals? Hmm...it's not a huge race by any means, but it's not tiny! I think this year they said there were twelve thousand participants over the course of the weekend.

Anyways, my travel to Calgary was painless (thank you, West Jet!) and I arrived at the host hotel, the Westin, to find it was FANTASTIC. Great hotel, a Starbucks and a Keg attached, plus another hotel restaurant and bar area, super clean and even kinda fancy. Most importantly, they had a race shuttle that got us right to the start area with no waits or stress.

The Westin is in a great location and my 3 mile run on Saturday morning was around the Prince's Island Park area and so beautiful!

Later I took a nice slow walk to the expo at the Big 4 Building, but it was further than I thought and I'd Uber next time. As for the expo, it was pretty basic but very quick and easy to get bibs and shirts.

I am not a fan of the race shirt, as many other people I talked to weren't. There is gorgeous artwork on it, it just looks dumb on a shirt! Also, the shirts are identical for all six different events (5k, 10k, half, full, 50k ultra and 150k relay/solo) with the only difference being the distance on the back. It's too bad, because it's fun when you're super proud of the distance you're tackling and get to wear your race top with your chest puffed out haha.
A complaint I have about the expo was there was nowhere at all within or nearby (that I could find) to get anything to eat or drink! Obviously I brought a bottle of Nuun with me but when I ran out I couldn't believe there was no water. Didn't even see a drinking fountain to refill my bottle, though I'm a bit blind. Being hungry/thirsty isn't something I'm into ever, especially not the day before a marathon. I know a race expo isn't a food fair, but they can be fun to hang out at for a while and people spend a fair amount of time at them in some cases.From there we easily took the C-Train back to the downtown core and walked the two or three blocks back to the Westin.

Come race morning, Crystal and I arrived at the start around six via our hotel's school bus shuttle, very easily checked out gear bags, and had no long waits for toilets inside the building or for porto-potties either. At this point, the porto-potties were still super clean and non-stinky. Bonus.

It wasn't actually that bad getting into the start chute where I wanted to be, but I was in there by 6:45 and wouldn't have wanted to try to squeeze in closer to the 7 am start. There was a massive line of runners shuffling in through one of the chute gate openings around the 3:45 marathon a ways up in front of me, and they all just slowly merged in as the race began. I don't actually know how anyone but the full marathoners were supposed to know where to go, unless they could find a pace bunny for their pace and distance. I only saw big red flags for certain marathon times. Not much order, but I didn't encounter any problems with it at all. Like YogiCrystal told me, just get there early and get into the chute where you want to be before it becomes a sardine can. This would have been a big problem if I'd needed one more bathroom visit before starting...

This race course has so many turns. I thought it was a nice course, pretty good scenery-wise and less residential than Victoria, if I'm remembering correctly. There were lots of excellent aid stations with water, Ultima, some with Honey Stinger gels (not my jam, but still awesome) and cold sponges! The course description said thirteen aid stations I believe but I felt like there were more. Maybe both sides of the out-and-back portion counted as one. It was very well-aided!

If I had know the course was this difficult, I think I would have have still registered, but I most definitely would not have been coming with a huge goal! I have to say I think it's lame the scale Calgary uses in the depiction of their course's profile. Extremely misleading! Here's another version of it on findmymarathon.com that I came across as well.

Combining this course with late-May hot weather (at least for me, coming from the mild north coast of BC) and my race plan was out the window. The fun of the Canada 150 theme, the spectator support (especially Lululemon YYC!) and my newfound love for the city of Calgary, and I managed to let go of the fact that this was nothing at all what I was expecting. I'm so happy I was able to finish the race with a good attitude, aside from a few hiccups. It was a serious struggle in the sun and knowing that a PR was out of reach, but I didn't go to the dark place.

The post-finish line area was AWESOME! There were some showers to wash off the salt all over us, lots of photographers to take our pics with the SWEET gigantic toonie-like medals that are also BELT BUCKLES hahaha, and there were lots of bananas, water and Ultima. I honestly don't remember if I was given any other snacks because of post-marathon brain, but I know there was a tear-off strip on the bibs that could get you food somewhere after exiting the immediate finish area.

Overall, I am glad that I went to the 2017 Calgary Marathon Weekend. I enjoyed the city, the event theme and the spectator support, and the host hotel was great. Personally, I think they should update the scale of their race course profile, and re-think the organization of the starting chute, and I think they should consider making the race shirts unique to the various distances. I had a fun weekend, but not outstanding enough to return since it was a ways for me to go. If I lived in Alberta and it was closer to me, I would definitely participate again, but not with any goal aside from possibly a course-PR.

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