The Philadelphia Marathon is the perfect marathon to travel to. There are plenty of things to site see while there, I had only been to Philadelphia once before, but was looking forward to coming back. The only problem was, I was feeling a bit under-the-weather. This was before COVID, so it was still fairly acceptable to walk out in public when you had a cold because capitalist America doesn't stop for any illness.

When I say this course is beginner friendly, I mean it. I was under trained due to working a split 2nd & 3rd shift at work, and with the cold on top of it, I didn't think I would finish anywhere near as quickly as I did.

Course:
Started at the "Rocky Steps" aka Philadelphia Museum of Art and ran down through Logan Square down Arch Street. The wrap around Old City onto Christopher Columbus Blvd to run alongside The Delaware River. From Miles 5 - 7 you enter back into Center City and Midtown Village, but this is where your Garmin will start to act up from all the buildings. My said I ran my 7th mile in 7:42 cause of it (I know I did not run nearly that fast when every other mile is around a 9:30). After that you run past Drexel and the Zoo when you enter into Fairmount Park. Finally you run to Manayunk to the turn around point and then run straight back down to the start.

The crowd once you reached the Manayunk strech was the loudest I have ever heard and it was such a party. If you are someone that loves to take free alcohol during a marathon, there are plenty of people along the main street stretch more than willing to pour you a beer or a fireball shot.

In the end I ran a 4:36:23 (about an hour faster than I though I would). Highly recommend.

The 500 Festival Mini Marathon has been my favorite race thus far - and not just because I broke my PB at 1:58:11. The organizers took great care in making this THE event for spring. The Expo was Marathon Level quality, and debuted the Indy 500 Pace Car as soon as you walked in. The merch was also Marathon level quality. The information staff was very informative and told my mom the perfect place to wait along the course in attempt to see me. Race day, however, was PACKED. I ran the 5k first and it was difficult to really get into a pace for the first mile from how many walkers/runners were squished together but I still made it back in time before the half start. Meb Keflezighi was the "Green Flag Waver" (cause the whole race was Indy 500 themed) and the energy from the crowd and fellow runners were contagious. After take off, I honestly don’t remember much from the race (because it was almost 5 years ago) but WOW was this course flat and fast. I was basically running negative splits until mile 10!!!! Even more impressive was that these negative splits included the time spent running on the Indy Speedway (which was horrible on my hips from the slant). I will gladly run this race again.

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The only aspect of this race that I would give below 4 stars was Expo Quality and Parking/Access. The Expo was rather small for a Marathon Expo (the 500 Fest Expo was larger) and there really wasn't parking nearby the start if you are staying out of downtown Burlington. However, if you plan on running the race I highly suggest staying in downtown Burlington as it is a quick 10min walk to the start line. The race itself though is my favorite marathon to date. Burlington is a gorgeous little down, and the course was well planned to get a taste of everything it had to offer. Looking at the 2023 course map, there were a lot of changes made since I ran this race in 2018 take may make it easier on runners. However, it still provides several opportunities for support systems to cheer on their loved ones. This was the first race I ran with a pace group and I gladly will do it again.

Even though Burlington is a small town, the whole town comes out to cheer on the participants making it have a big city race feel.

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