Charleston Marathon costs runners BQ

Yet another stinker of a marathon? wrote:

Here's the course. You're right, pretty terrible and no way runners could run it by memory.

http://charlestonmarathon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/CHS-Full-2018Updated.pdf

That turnaround in the river looks tough. I'm surprised people BQ on this course, runners are usually terrible swimmers.

I used to live in Charleston, and just to judge by the map, that course is a travesty. Charleston is a gorgeous city...except for most of where the race goes. If the race had local organizers and local support, you could set up an absolutely stunning course that wound through James Island and West Ashley and around the peninsula, maybe over into Mount Pleasant, with some breathtaking views of the harbor coming over one of the bridges. You have the raw material in Charleston to make it a destination race that sells the city. But all that potential is being wasted.

Coach Cookie wrote:

Yet another stinker of a marathon? wrote:

Here's the course. You're right, pretty terrible and no way runners could run it by memory.

http://charlestonmarathon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/CHS-Full-2018Updated.pdf

That turnaround in the river looks tough. I'm surprised people BQ on this course, runners are usually terrible swimmers.

That would be a pier but still those things suck to run on

low country has-been wrote:

I used to live in Charleston, and just to judge by the map, that course is a travesty. Charleston is a gorgeous city...except for most of where the race goes. If the race had local organizers and local support, you could set up an absolutely stunning course that wound through James Island and West Ashley and around the peninsula, maybe over into Mount Pleasant, with some breathtaking views of the harbor coming over one of the bridges. You have the raw material in Charleston to make it a destination race that sells the city. But all that potential is being wasted.

Th

Yes, it has the potential to be either a Boston or NYC type course and bring in tons of runners when tourism is lower. I'd say the bigger problem is an obese population who don't want to be inconvenienced when getting the morning sausage biscuits. They will raise holy hell when the streets are closed. Just look at the pushback cyclists receive for being legally on the roads.

The Cooper River Bridge Run is the only large race the cities will tolerate only because it has come to be a tradition. There are no champions for an equivalent marathon that can make it happen under the weight of the many bureaucracies that would have to be involved in the event.

Yes the course for the full is bad but up until this year there hasn't been an issue with people running the proper course. Give the race back to the locals and it'll be fine again

Ran the marathon in 2016 and hated the course... I'd have a hard time imagining a worse last 10k in a marathon with all those out-and-backs and loops through random neighborhoods and parks. The end of a marathon is draining enough without the added feeling that you're not making any forward progress. Thanks to Strava, I saw some people also missed turns that year, though not as egregiously as this year.

The middle miles of the course are excusable because downtown Charleston, while very nice, is not very big; there are going to be some crappy sections unless you run over some area bridges and now you're looking at a marathon with hills in an area which is famously flat.

I decided to run the half this year to avoid the terrible marathon course and it was a much better decision. The course still suffered from those crappy barren middle miles but you get all the good parts of the course without any annoying add-ons to get the distance. But it turns out a group of half marathoners ALSO missed a turn. Apparently a handful of HMers who crossed the line in the 1:20-1:30 range didn't turn towards Riverfront Park which cut about 0.7mi off the course. You can see a lot of people in the 6th-40th place range (but not all) in the results who supposedly ran their second half ~30s/mi faster than their first, which isn't evidence on its own but I've come across a couple Strava entries already that show the missed turn. Now I think I remember that turn being less obvious than the others but I still had no problem with it so this one is more on the runners than the race management, but still.

I get that this happens sometimes, but we're probably looking at ~50 affected runners between the M and HM in a not-so-huge event... that's a LOT and is pretty inexcusable. Now that said, it sounds like the race was refunding entries to those who weren't properly directed, which honestly is about as good as you're ever going to get (I also think I read that they might have been giving out free entries to Myrtle Beach marathon which is even better). Yeah they can't give you the BQ or the PR you were going to get but a lot of races would say "sorry but TS" and that would be that. Don't get me wrong, it sucks and I'd be PISSED but I think they're doing as much as they can do for right now. But as another poster(s) mentioned, the real fix is a new course... they're definitely getting a lot of feedback this year so let's see what they do with it.

Also FWIW just to be clear, there was no 3:00 pace group, there was a group of runners that were running 3:00 pace. The fastest pace group was 3:15.

I mean wrote:

Yes the course for the full is bad but up until this year there hasn't been an issue with people running the proper course. Give the race back to the locals and it'll be fine again

Ostensibly this new group was brought in to increase the art school charity dollars, wasn't it? The refunds, etc., must have put a huge dent in that back-stabbing deal. I wouldn't expect previous locals would want to touch it. Maybe the CRBR org could.

Longish Runner wrote:

I mean wrote:

Yes the course for the full is bad but up until this year there hasn't been an issue with people running the proper course. Give the race back to the locals and it'll be fine again

Ostensibly this new group was brought in to increase the art school charity dollars, wasn't it? The refunds, etc., must have put a huge dent in that back-stabbing deal. I wouldn't expect previous locals would want to touch it. Maybe the CRBR org could.

I fell the new group was just in it to make a buck this year