Louie's Very Delayed Hartford Marathon Review

It's been almosttwo and a half months since Riley, Nick and I completed the Hartford Marathon. I considered skipping doing a review for this race. At first I did not want to write a review because part of the experience was bad. I will get into that later. Then I debated skipping this review simply because it has been so long since the event. Now to state the obvious, I have decided to write a review or well more of a recap.

Waiting at th starting line. Photo Credit to Riley.

The events of the day before the marathon. We headed for the marathon around 6 o'clock and this was the start of this going badly. We ended up hitting rush hour traffic on the way to Hartford and barely made it to check in on time. Upon getting to get in, Riley and Nick recieved marathon relay bibs in place of the official marathon bib and I received a generic Hartford Marathon Foundation bib. There check in was strange in that they did not have numbers assigned to pre-registered runners and instead you were given whatever number they reached for during check-in. 

After checking in, it turns out that they had run out of the official t-shirts. We were asked to write down our name, which race, address, and shirt size as they would be mailing them to us.  As of this post , we have not received our race shirts. We were informed that the order was placed the end of November and we would have them in four to six weeks. 

So next up is the race itself.  For the race itself, I have nothing but good things to say about the course and the volunteers.  The course itself had a lot of great scenery and whether it was running on water or through downtown Hartford, it was beautiful. The first six or so miles were run with those running the half marathon and then from there we split off onto our own course. The marathon course was lined with both spectators and volunteers water stops were frequent enough. They averaged about every other mile or so. 

Crossing the Finishline!

Physically, the first half of the marathon went pretty well. Having ran a few half marathons this year I was prepared for that. I came into the marathon with a sore ankle and after the halfway mark it started to act up, but I just kept running. Eventually, it turned into a run then walk then run routine, but even so I managed to finish the marathon. That was all that counted. 

Crossing the finish line was amazing. We were greeted with water bottles and what we call "space blankets". What we were not greeted with however were the hard earned finisher's medals. They had run out of them as well. Once again we were asked to put our name, event and address on a sheet of paper as it was going to be mailed to us. We have all received them in the mail. It is easily the coolest finisher's medal in my collection. 

Note: That is not the official shirt. It was one I purchased at the race day expo.

A few fun and random notes from the race:

1. Riley and I started singing Livin' on a Prayer at mile 13. "Ohhhhh, We're halfway there."

2. The highest elevation we had to climb was at mile 25. 

3. It was inspirational to see many of the runners who also achieved there goal of finishing a marathon. It can see like a daunting task.

4. The Cracker Barrel has the greatest bacon cheeseburger and apple cider ever.*

*This could have just been my hungry self making me believe this.