Ottawa Fall Colours Marathon

Hello, This is my 28th marathon in 16 different cities all over North America and overall, it was a great marathon course (despite the out and back twice). The organization and support is fantastic, but the second half of the course, I felt I was running alone at times for long periods and I ran my marathon in 4 hours and should have some runners around me. I would recommend to move the marathon start time earlier, as I find 10:00am to late as many marathoners take 3:45 or longer and I was very hungry two hours into the marathon. Another recommendation for runner safety is to close the entire lane of the road as we were forced to run on the edge of the road, which was on broken asphalt and uneven gravel for the second half of the marathon due to oncoming traffic. Overall, if you want a small marathon with good organization, this may be a race for you, but keep in mind of the late start time and rolling hills.

This was my 32nd Overall Marathon, and it was beautiful. The course is out and back, which you do twice. The volunteers and organization was great, with lots of support at each water station. If you want a scenic, small race, then this is it!! The positives: - The medal and t-shirt were exceptional for a small-town race. - Excellent course support and volunteers (16 water stations for the Marathon) - Very scenic and beautiful Fall Colours Areas for Improvement: 1. The start time (10am) is very late for a Marathon. When you finish the Marathon, you feel all alone. All the other runners have left since all the races start within 10 minutes of each other. If you can start the Marathon at 8am or even 9am, then the atmosphere at the Finish will be much better. 2. The course was supposed to be closed for one lane, but we had cars zipping by us on the 'closed' lane. This is very dangerous and unsafe for runners. 3. It would be nice to have a chip timing mat at the 10K turnaround, so you can see your progress throughout the Marathon. 4. Please have a two loop course, because out and back twice gets very boring and mundane for the Marathoners. The course is beautiful, but with a few tweaks, it can be amazing.

Very small race but well organized. I trained on hills but thought it was very hilly for a marathon. It takes a lot out of you. Loved running it though because it's not flat, but very hard to BQ on it. People very friendly, second part of the marathon a bit lonely. The only big negative point for me was ...one porta potty every 10km is NOT enough :(.