I've ran this race for several years and it is consistently enjoyable! This is a smaller race and they cap the racers to around 3,000. Most years this race sells in September and the event is in November. When you arrive at the event, parking is easy to find. Usually everyone parks in fields or street parking close to the event.

The race goes through the town of Lake Mills, where a lot of the town comes out to cheer the runners on. It then winds around the Aztalan park and the lake. The last portion takes you on the Glacial Drumlin Trail, which is crushed gravel. The coarse has about 5 aid stations, which is adequate since it is usually a colder race. There is also an "unofficial" beer stop at mile 5, which I look forward to every year.

This is not a race to try an PR, because of the hills and the trail for most of the race. However, if you want a fun group run then this is the race for you. The post race party is top notch. Even with the low price of the race, you still receive a full lasagna dinner and 2 Tyranena beers! Most of the time, you find people not wanting their beer tickets, and get a few extra. The post-race is in a huge tent with tables and chairs set up. It can get a little full in the tent, but it's a fun way to meet new people and keep warm.

The swag is usually pretty good as well. The t-shirts are always really nice. All half marathoners get a medal which is nothing too special, but still a medal. This year RunningintheUSA.com took pictures at the 7 mile mark, otherwise there aren't any other pictures. Personally, this is fine with me, because of the low cost of the race.

Pros: low cost, fun post-party, great beer, beautiful course
Cons: few aid stations, low quality medal

I would recommend this race to everyone. In fact, I'm getting a big group together to run it next year! Come join me!

This was my first 50k and it was an amazing experience!
The night before the race, there was a panel discussion with a few of The North Face athletes and the race director. This helped calm the nerves a bit.
Morning of the race, there's hassle free parking. You get to park right next to the start/finish line, which makes life easy when you're done racing.
During the race, the course is marked very well the whole way and has volunteers at all the street crossings to make sure it's safe to cross.
The aid stations are PACKED with food! This made it difficult not to pack my face full of yummy food like candy, baked potato slices, gu's, chews, potato chips, pretzels....so many options! They also have GU electrolyte drink at every aid station.
The race was beautiful! The trails go through a some hilly areas and then some prairie lands. The leaves were starting to change this year which made it even more beautiful.
The finisher area was a fun little village. There was free beer and a big meal for all the finishers. This was along with the finisher food and water they gave you right when you passed the finish line. I also got free socks and immediate race results.
I would definitely recommend this race to anyone. They have distances for everyone ranging from a kid's race all the way up to a 50 miler.

Our team had been looking forward to this event for over 6 months. We had everything planned out for packing and all of our race routes memorized.
It started at the packet pickup in Madison, Wisconsin. This was all a little confusing because the tents were all scattered and we didn't know which tents we needed to go to first.
The race route was organized well. We managed to find the next destination in time to meet our running teammate.
The main issue we ran into was finding adequate parking. Some of the interchanges made it very difficult to leave on time or find parking. Also, the major interchanges were oversold. They were over crowded and didn't have the perks that were advertised.
The race said that any race length that was over 4 miles would have a water station, but this did not end up being true. Only one of the racers in our group said they had a water station. I even ran a length over 6 miles without water.
Finally the finisher area was sadly the most disappointing part of the whole event. The race seemed to focus more on selling branded items than the actual finish experience. As a whole the team spent over $1,000 for the event and at the finish we got 1 small beer, and a tiny cup of dry pasta without a fork to eat it with.
Luckily the finisher medal was pretty sweet. I did appreciate the free photos that were posted from the event as well. But spending that amount of money for the event should have warranted a few more perks, especially at the finish.
If you chose to do this race, it is a lot of fun if you're with a great group of people. I highly enjoyed staying up all night with my teammates and rockin' out to the music in the van. Also a must, is you must have a great theme for your team and make sure to decorate the van! I'm not sure if I'll do this race again, but it was definitely worth a try.

This race is a great home away from home race. It has great crowd support along the entire route, even with Kalamazoo not being the biggest city. The race starts out at 8am, giving people a little extra time in the morning to get ready, though it did get a little toasty outside later in the race. The race runs all around Kalamazoo, Michigan. Some of the most popular points being Western Michigan University, Asylum Lake Preserve, along the Kalamazoo River, and through Spring Valley Park. This race is not the flattest course, but is still reasonably flat enough to set a PR. It does have a killer hill right at mile 25.5 that you need to be prepared for, but overall a fairly flat course.

But the best part about running the Kalamazoo marathon was the amazing community involvement with the race! The different neighborhoods came out to cheer and some even set up their own aid stations to help the runners. I couldn't resist stopping at the Bacon Station at mile 15! There were also neighborhoods giving out Bell's beer, girl scout cookies, gummie bears, PBR's, and so much more. I think I gained weight during this race.

This race also offers a very experienced pacing team. I was fortunate to talk to several pacers along the way, and they all had a lot of experience and were great conversationalists.

Lastly, if you feel up for it, definitely check out the different booths set up for after the race and take advantage of the free meal ticket. They served up roasted chicken, corn, potatoes, brownies, and sodas or water. That is if you still have room in your stomach after all the snacking along the race path.

In short here are the positives and negatives of the Kalamazoo Marathon:

POSITIVES: Community support, experienced pacing crew, food along the course and after the race, free race photos!

NEGATIVES: Only had water at several water stops (ran out of GU brew), the last hill is a killer