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Casino Niagara Marathon
(Niagara Falls, Ontario)
Author: dgrant
Date: 2006-10-22
(Comments refer to half marathon 2006)
Until just now, I was pretty down on this race... it's truly incredible how cursed this race is for weather, ugly year after year.
This is a PB course in terms of topography: very flat until a significant downhill over the final 2K.
UNBELIEVABLY enthusiastic volunteers, particularly the high school kids at the aid stations. I've run races with aid stations as good, but none better. My highest thanks to them all. Author: QuickChick
Date: 2005-07-27
This was my first marathon, so I have a bit of an emotional attachment!
The good...
It's pancake flat, except for the peace bridge, but that's about 5K in so I barely noticed.
It's cool to run across the border!
If you want to BQ, this would be a great place to do it.
There's also a half marathon (although it doesn't cross the border)
It's pretty! The colours are nice and a lot of the run is along the Niagara River.
The not so good...
It's point-to-point, which personally I don't like. They bus you to the start line which takes forever (I was thinking... oh god... I have to run all the way back?!!). In Buffalo you have to sit around for a couple of hours before the race. I found a coffee shop near the start so that was OK, but it was still a long wait.
The weather... it's often cold and/or rainy.
There isn't a lot of crowd support, and the course is hard to access for spectators
There's a sign along the way (at about 20K I guess!) that said "Niagara Falls- 22km". A bit psychologically daunting... but that was just me.
These are all, of course, little things that other people might not care about. Overall I would recommend it. Just dress for the weather (layers) and bring an ipod or something for the quiet parts of the course!
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