Melbourne Marathon

Expo The communications in the lead-up were kind of confusing about whether there was an expo or not, or whether you just go to the office to pick up your bib. Turns out there was an expo outside the MCG; it wasn't super busy though possibly because Australian entrants could have their bibs mailed to them. I registered way in advance but didn't get my name on my bib while plenty of others did, so I'm not sure what that's about. I asked about shirts and they said there were none. Course Super flat, but pretty dull. Plenty of out and back sections so you could see other runners, and then an annoying detour into the Botanic Gardens on the way back to the MCG. Lots of missing km markers especially at the end. Plenty of water at each station, but overfilled cups made it all very soggy. There were two stations with gels (Maurten) which were great and I will definitely buy them in future. There were some merging spots with the half and then the 5km or 3km, but they tried to keep those distances separate. The stadium finish had separate lanes for all the distances. I imagine fast runners would have had issues with the merging. Atmosphere Eerily quiet for the second largest marathon in Australia. The few spectators out on the course were only cheering the people they knew. There were maybe 3 spots playing music. The only part of the course with any sort of atmosphere was the last 500m into the stadium where there were actually people. Post-race For marathoners you went straight to bag pickup, to get your finisher shirt, and there was a changing room too so that was really smooth. However they were running out of smaller sizes - not surprising, because they never took your size preference during registration since it wasn't clear whether there were going to be shirts. The general lack of enthusiasm carried through to the finish - I had to ask someone for a medal because the people handing them out weren't paying attention to who was walking past. They only gave out cups of water/Gatorade (no bottles) in the name of sustainability even though they handed them out at the expo the day before, so I was pretty parched. They also had zero food - not even an orange segment or banana. Overall, it was fine - helped a lot by the perfect weather and the flat course but the complete lack of atmosphere was a bit unexpected for a big city and the field size. I happened to be in town so did the race, but wouldn't travel for it. The were some oddities with the organization especially if you're used to overseas races where shirts and post-race hydration are always included.

I have one massive gripe (and it's a big one) about the Melbourne marathon. I'd be warned about this by other runners but participating in the 2022 event I got to experience it for myself first-hand. That is the joining of the half marathon and marathon course on the return to the city along St Kilda Road. It's a mess. Really it's a complete balls-up. It's the worst thing about running the Melbourne marathon and the reason I wouldn't come back. After running 30km at a decent pace (I was running with the 3:20 pace group at ~4:40/km) you're into the harder section of course where you have some uphill sections on the return to the MCG. At this point the event organisers have thought up a marvellous scheme to make the last 10km of your marathon even harder than it needs to be. They introduce moving obstacles onto the course in front of you. Literally 1,000's of slow runners running at half the speed are spread all over the road from one curb to the other. In their infinite wisdom the race organisers have decided to bring the half marathon and marathon courses onto the same narrow section of road for much of the last 10km. There's no cones to keep the runners separated, no marshalls keeping the slow runners to the left, nothing. I mean absolutely NOTHING. There's a small respite for a couple of km where the marathon runners do an extra loop through the park but then the courses collide again but this time with the 10km runners (walkers) added in for good measure. Whoever thought this was a good idea clearly has never run the event. Or maybe they have not run another major marathon and been able to compare a good one with a bad one. Unless you're an elite and at the really pointy end of the field running a sub-2:30 marathon you're going to have problems. Even the guys running sub 3 have the exact same issues. I was talking to another runner on the train afterwards and he said it's a problem every year. Something tells me I won't be back in a hurry. Not to run the marathon at least.