Marine Corp Marathon was a mess

Please, tell us more.

They put everyone through metal detectors at the start. From what I understand, the line was well over an hour long. Many, many people missed the start and were forced to weave through people for the first half of the race.

Sounds typical for a DC race. You never know what kind of security hoops you'll have to jump through or issues might arise when you race there. It's always a roll of the dice about whether or not it will go smoothly.

Typical DC wrote:

Sounds typical for a DC race. You never know what kind of security hoops you'll have to jump through or issues might arise when you race there.

While taking the shuttle from Crystal City to the starting line (which they recommended), I saw 15-20 marines pouring cups of water out at the 24th mile water station. This was 6:30am and the race began at 8. After my shuttle stopped at security, there was an hour+ wait for thousands of runners and spectators to funnel into maybe 5 rows of security. I have no idea why on Earth they would staff other sections of the race in the way they did when there was a clear issue brewing. Even if they didn't see it coming, get 20 guys trucked over and have them help out.

The post-race logistics were almost as bad. If the bag pickup were on UPS trucks, why park them 8 blocks from the finish? Good god, people just ran a marathon. Line after line. Wonderful in some ways, but I'd never do that marathon again.

I walked over Memorial bridge. Took me about 3 seconds to get through 'security' (a man with a torch) and into the Pentagon car park, then a short walk up to the start line.

800 dude wrote:

They put everyone through metal detectors at the start. From what I understand, the line was well over an hour long. Many, many people missed the start and were forced to weave through people for the first half of the race.

Can someone explain why this is necessary? I mean, if you want to be anal you could x-ray the items for the bag drop, but, honestly, what are you going to prevent that anyone without a bib could inflict?

The metal detector really makes no sense. They're targeting the wrong people and you can regularly stroll all around DC without having to go through a metal detector on other days where the city is just as crowded. It's possible it's not the marathon's requirement but the city's itself. I'd like to have that clarified.

This race has never put up big times. It's one an American can regularly win in 2:30. You shouldn't run it if your goal is a good performance. Do it if you like the military or DC.

Shoebacca wrote:

The metal detector really makes no sense. They're targeting the wrong people and you can regularly stroll all around DC without having to go through a metal detector on other days where the city is just as crowded. It's possible it's not the marathon's requirement but the city's itself. I'd like to have that clarified.

This race has never put up big times. It's one an American can regularly win in 2:30. You shouldn't run it if your goal is a good performance. Do it if you like the military or DC.

2:30 will get you top ten, but I don't believe it would ever have won it. Usually it's closer to 2:20.

Shoebacca wrote:

The metal detector really makes no sense. They're targeting the wrong people and you can regularly stroll all around DC without having to go through a metal detector on other days where the city is just as crowded. It's possible it's not the marathon's requirement but the city's itself. I'd like to have that clarified.

This race has never put up big times. It's one an American can regularly win in 2:30. You shouldn't run it if your goal is a good performance. Do it if you like the military or DC.

If you can run much faster than that odds are you can find a midsized marathon that you can actually win some prize money at. Most of the top finishers were army or navy guys who run it for other reasons.

Shut down the marines. Who needs them with hypersonic missile, drones, SEALS, and Deltas? Marines suck.

Shoebacca wrote:

The metal detector really makes no sense. They're targeting the wrong people and you can regularly stroll all around DC without having to go through a metal detector on other days where the city is just as crowded. It's possible it's not the marathon's requirement but the city's itself. I'd like to have that clarified.

This race has never put up big times. It's one an American can regularly win in 2:30. You shouldn't run it if your goal is a good performance. Do it if you like the military or DC.

NYRR metal detects at big races too - I suspect it's to prevent carnage in the tightly packed starting corrals, not during the race.

security theatrics strike again. I ran NYC last year and vowed never again for big city races. Security/metal detectors/max water bottle sizes for the runners... so that runners who have been securely screened can run 26.2 miles of open roads. any nut in any one of the zillion buildings you run by could wreak havoc if desired, but the runners who paid money to toe the line are the ones who have to deal with the security theatrics.

Small races are the solution for me.... but a few more clusters like this and I bet my favorite small races will get bigger since no one in their right mind will tolerate this stuff.

It's really tough for marathoners who want a competitive field to help pull them along. Unless you're at a big city marathon or one of a few "connoisseur" races like Cal International or Grandma's, it's likely you'll be time trialing the whole thing without anyone else in sight.

"any nut in any one of the zillion buildings you run by could wreak havoc if desired"

I was working my way down to spectate at MCM one year and found myself on a bridge a little over a quarter mile down the course. I'm thinking this will be a sweet spot to watch the start and then roll onto another part of the course. Well, a hired security guy sees me up there and gets all pissy about me leaving NOW. So I moved on down to a spot along side the road right next to the runners where if I was wanting to do bodily harm there'd be ample runners at arms length. Whatever, just meant I had to jog with the race for a bit to get on the inside of the loop, again, amongst all the runners.

Security was just one of the ways the race administrators goofed this year. Yes the morning line at security was extremely poorly thought out, but how about there being nowhere to park at the expo Saturday? They couldn't align themselves with a parking garage they way they did for race day? How about the mess at the finish line, where there were runners swarming marines to get food and water and an insane wait to get out of the athlete's village and walk 7 blocks to the bag pickup? I've run other big city marathons and this was unique in how poorly thought out it all was.

My takeaways from this years MCM:

1. Security was absurd to get to the "Runners Village". I've never seen it that bad. Got there about 6:20 and probably got thru at 7:30. There was ZERO organization. No announcements, no lines.. Just a bunch of runners and a lot of family members standing around.

They need to have a bag check line and a separate line for people not checking bags.

2. The mess at the finish line is actually better than it used to be. They have done a okay job of actually making the bottleneck as you go up the hill better. They didn't used to have the fences up and it was a madhouse with families trying to find their runner. It's still not good, but once you get to the top of the hill, it opens up pretty quickly.

3. The expo always sucks. If they have it at RFK/Armory there is plenty of parking but it's very crowded. So much so they usually have bib pick up in a large tent and the actual expo in the Armory. The DC Convention Center has not much parking anywhere around it, but it has a large amount of space. Better than next year when it's at the god-forsaken National Harbor, which is nowhere near a Metro stop and is a pain in the ass to get in/out on a good day.