1. Pre-race Organization: It was nice to see the marathon with a title sponsor again. However, the website had few updates, not the best navigation, and even today they do not have a recap of the race (this is the kindest I will be)
2. Elites (pre-race organization cont'd): In the summer the elite athlete coordinator was listed as Janis Pierce (also the overall director). She could not handle this easy duty (despite listing elite guidelines as the same as last year) and sub-contracted this bit of work to Larry Barthlow. Barthlow, who more than a few times in articles in Philly papers was quick to note he is a recruiter of top athletes, preceded to lack essential communication skills for a man in his position. He did not get back to people quickly (if at all ). They eliminated any possible housing, and did not have elite water tables (note: they sucked in the past at Philly).
3. The 1/2M: Philly has a great half in PDR, two months before Philly. No need for a second one, especially with the confusion it added. Bibs- The color difference was very suttle between the two bibs; peach, a light color, for the 1/2, very light blue/white for the full. Spend some money on a very dark red dye for your bibs and eliminate any possible confusion for spectators. To eliminate confusion for those racing, make sure that the 1/2 people wear a bib on their back so that people aren't chasing after someone who is going to suddenly stop mid-race. I did not get to see the finish of the half but heard that it was a disaster, and everyone knew it was going to be so based on the course map. Having people come to a dead stop, turn around, and come back is dangerous. The "lanes" to differentiate between 3 different races were not marked, or noted, and also lended to the confusion. There was also talk of the last few mile markers in the 1/2, and the middle Marathon markers, being hard to tell between. I had biked out to the 12 mile mark but didn't know of which race. Apparently the red markers were for the half. How did you know? Again, spend some of that new money on a bigger sign that says. When in the middle of a race, this can be confusing.
4.Pre-race publicity: non-exsistent and contradictory. There was one article in the local papers and it was buried in the back of the sports pages. Headlines: "Phila. Marathon making run for the big time." In the article Pierce and Barthlow basically disagree. "Philadelphia is trying to break out of the pack"-Barthlow. "A lot of people don't want us to grow"- Pierce. She said that people didn't want a crowded race, THEN WHY ADD A HALF-MARATHON!?!?! Also, tell your dumbass press secretary to avoid bashing your own marathon; ""It can be boring for 26.2 [miles] and for as scenic as Philadelphia is, there are gaps... It motivates them when they hear people cheering for them," Giancaterino said.
5.EXPO: The expo has always been held on Eakins Oval and for very good reasons. They need the tent for post-race, plus for this week's Thanksgiving Day Parade which is held in front of the museum. However, if you are going to expand your race, even though you apparently don't want to, then you need to expand your expo space. It was packed at 2PM on Saturday, traffic was a mess, and the tent had too small aisles to walk around in. It was so crowded that when you first walked in they had a volunteer wave people to head to the back of the tent to pick-up their number. She was standing right in front of the marathon merchandise area. She waved people away from buying their own product!! They then, or was it the fire marshall, stoped people at the door and made them form a line. One that took an hour and half, outside, in November. Good call! Inside, they did not have signs high up indicating where anything was. You had to walk up to the back tables, past line that were forming, and check and see if that line was your bib number. These lines were only seperated by the numbers hand written on the front of the boxes. Profesionalism people. Plus the area to grab numbers was too small for lines, and the boards containing what number you would get were all jammed in the corner! They also ran out of pins. 4*12,000 runners is 48,000 pins. Go out and buy 50,000, just in case! Or, have the pins in the bags to eliminated people taking to many. (a company could make alot of money buy promising to sell pins packed together in groups of 4).
6. Race-day: The start was moved up from where it usually is, and what was indicated on the map, was it short? Mile splits were all off and so were the clocks. The lead vehicles clock read 3:26:23 at the 17 mile mark!!! How hard is it to reach down and press a button? What the f***? The half people almost plowed into the full people at the rejoin, and apparently a fat man with a megaphone in the middle of the road was the turn off for the 1/2 finish.
SOLUTIONS
1. Fire Pierce (whose apparent qualifications is she ran 5:12 two years ago, never heard of this woman before this!
2. Either eliminate the half, or have it on a different course, or if you keep it and have it split off, when it rejoins, make sure it is then sepereated by the full by coned off lanes and bib numbers. And for the finish, when you come back up the hill to the art museum, make a right, go around Eakins Oval and slide into the finish like you were merging into traffic.
3. The city loves to tout it's Convention Center, and the citizens of the city spent a ton on it. USE it for the expo!
4. Fire Larry Barthlow, never heard a nice word spoken about him anyway.
5. And finally, if you really want to expand you must change the date. You are going head to head with NYC and Chicago. Also if you want that marathon tourism dollars, you can't have the race 3 days before the busiest travel day of the year. Move it to the early spring, mid/late March.
I am sure there is more, but I am tired.