This is what bothers the hell out of me:
They start the marathon at 7 AM because they want to get it over with. It's a huge inconvenience to the city in their mind, but they want the revenue.
So, top runners have to start literally 8 minutes after sunrise as a result.
Then, they run the 2nd half of the course as an out and back on Kelly Drive, which is no man's land for spectators minus the 2 miles in Manayunk and it's the same boring run we do all the time here in the city.
If their effort is efficiency in getting the marathon out of the way, why do they keep the course open so long? What if they had a reasonable 6 hour time limit and started the race at 8 am instead? It would clearly benefit the top runners and probably 80% of the field as well.
They might even get daring and try running a city race through the city for more than the first 8 miles.