Milwaukee Running Festival Marathon

This race showed up on race calendars earlier this year, and appeared to be a new marathon event in Milwaukee. Milwaukee has several marathon events, and so far I have run all the ones that I knew about. When I did some research and wrote some e-mails to ask questions, it appeared that this might just be the old Milwaukee Running Festival. The race official I dialoged with told me that this was effectively a new race. There was a new sponsorer (the Milwaukee Bucks Basketball Club - and their facility), a new start/finish line, and a new race course. So I am listing this as a new marathon that I had not run earlier. I knew up front that they were expecting a big crowd because they asked what your expected finish time was, so they could assign you to a corral - where the faster runners get to go first. To me that is the wrong philosophy, but you have to play their game, or you will automatically get stuck in the back corral. Hats off to the Milwaukee Bucks for sponsoring us. The Bucks have a brand new facility where they play basketball, which they share with Marquette University for basketball games. It is called Fiserv Forum, and my GPS did not recognize it. Constructed last summer, some of the street names were changed from number streets (6th, 7th, etc.) to streets named after people. Again, my GPS did not recognize these names as they were perhaps only a year old. And the search I did on Fiserv Forum showed a construction site, not a gymnasium. I got assistance from other resources and people to get a picture of what I was driving into, and I was able to get to the geographical location. Then the old Bradley Center - that Fiserv replaced, was being torn down - and it was a massive structure. All this to say that there was construction going on everywhere, parallel parking on the streets was extremely limited. And they already seemed to have the roads alongside the Forum, blocked off for the race. I got to the area okay, and found a parking place, but saw no signs pointing to the expo location, so I just started walking. Eventually I got to the front doors. Inside, we had access to a very small section of the lobby, and it was like going to the airport. They were physically searching everything that anyone was carrying (laptop, backpack, purse, etc.) So there was a line out the door. Once inside, it was pretty smooth. The gal looked up my name and gave me my bib/number, then at another table they were handing out the shirts and fleeces. State Farm had a booth/table and was giving stuff away. There were a couple of other vendors trying to sell you stuff. It was a really small expo for several thousand runners. Then on race day morning they had guards/inspectors checking anything you were carrying before they'd let you into the area. It was nuts. Marquette University was down there handing out stuff to promote their school. For the runners, they had drop bags provided for warm-up clothes. That worked really well. Then they had food vendors down there trying to sell food and drink. The 5K people left a half-hour before the marathon started. Then the half and full marathoners were all corralled together (a bad choice; too many people). Also, this race was all on roads that had been closed for the event. There was a time limit of 6.5 hours for the marathon. However, they released the runners in the 5 corrals at about 5 minute intervals (a,b,c,d,&e). If you were in the back, you started 20 minutes later. So for the slow runners (like me) the clocks on the course (a clock at every mile-marker, was 20 minutes off). Then it was uncertain if the race end time was actually 1:30 pm, or if we got an extra 20 minutes. We simply did not know. If they announced this over the P.A., we could not hear it. If the course was to be shut down at 1:30, it would have been nice to know that up front. The course was decent. We started heading toward the waterfront, then an out and back loop took up about 8 miles. Then it seemed we went northwest of downtown for a ways, then there were out and back spurs that we did - some of those included several turns on city streets. Honestly, I had no idea where in town I was until we headed back to downtown. One of the out and back routines was on Sherman Blvd, and I did recognize that from years earlier. The last mile or two were through downtown proper, and it was amazing to run between the skyscraper buildings and look straight up. The weather was great. It was low 50's, and overcast most of the day. I still got minor sunburn through the clouds. The race organization provided uncut bananas (a great choice!) bottled water, and single serving size granola-type packs. Hot food cost money - if you had money with you. Parking was a disaster. There were several parking garages near-by. Daily rates seemed to be about $8.00 from what I saw; for the event they were charging $15.00 per vehicle; one I saw charged $20. I parked on the other side of the Interstate and walked ½ mile over the bridge to save parking fees. Street parking downtown had 2 hour time limit - enforced on Saturdays. How convenient. There was an absolute abundance of volunteers over the whole course, providing for the runners. They were great, but with paper cups and gel-packs, there was litter everywhere. This race has potential once construction is finished and the area is cleaned up.

I have run this race twice and this year was my 53rd marathon. This is the third annual Milwaukee marathon. As a resident of the city I really enjoy running a course that showcases so many various neighborhoods in Milwaukee. There was some negative press surrounding the race this year because the actual distance came up as 25.5 miles. There was a mistake made at the cone placement of the turnaround and hence the error. Last year there was an issue of someone either intentionally moving the cone or again a mistake being made making the course slightly longer. Maybe .2 or something. I don't recall. I have faith that they will get it right next year in terms of the distance. This isn't really the race to run if you are looking for a Boston qualifying time or a PR. There are a lot of twists and turns and some elevation. The twists and turns is what I enjoyed - going in and out of neighborhoods. The race was very well supported. Aide stations were plentiful. Police along the course and at intersections was also plentiful. This race had 585 finishers in the full this year so once the half marathon breaks off, it becomes a little more sparse. There was also a 5k and 10k distance as well. The finishers party was decent - at the Harley Museum - outdoors. The expo was also on the property of the Harley Davidson museum which is pretty cool. It's a fun race to do if you want to check out areas of Milwaukee on foot. The streets are closed down for the race. Spectators are a little slim but hopefully will increase as the course grows. The creator and first race director of this event wanted to recruit people from the communities we run through to participate. I found that this race had more diversity in the runners than most races I have done. I liked being a part of that effort.

I couldn't find much not to like about this race. The expo & packet pick up were easy. Plenty of good hotel options all within easy walking distance of the start. For a bigger city race the people were about as friendly and nice as any of the small town races I've run. They started on time, good on course support with a lot of aid stations and friendly volunteers encouraging us along the way. I found the course interesting and really enjoyed the variety of scenery along the way, along the lake shore, through the parks, and various neighborhoods. plenty of spectators out there cheering us on. I found the course well marked with adequate volunteers, police and public safety folks pointing the way and controlling traffic. We had wide open streets with no traffic so I never felt any concern for runner safety. The only thing lacking was perhaps the post race stuff - I really wasn't clear on what was available or where (like food, etc.) probably partly my fault for not looking at the details ahead, also the area was soggy from rain the night before so I didn't make a lot of effort. Bottom line: I really enjoyed this race and I would absolutely recommend it.