Newport

Review

• Picking a Rhoda Island race was tough because there weren't many options

  • When I saw that this was the 10th anniversary race, I figured I might as well sign up!

  • The other Rhode Island races are located in Providence, Warwick, another Newport one (held in October), and Narragansett

• The flight was straightforward from Pittsburgh to Providence since it was a direct flight!

• The expo was at the YMCA, and it was kinda small since it was in the gym

  • I liked having the honey stinger waffles at the shirt pickup! It was great to have that additional fuel just in case someone didn't have enough

  • There was a coupon for a free appetizer at a nearby restaurant 

• The morning of the race had shuttle buses to and from parking areas

  • I didn't use them since I used a Lyft to be dropped off a few blocks away and walked towards the start

• The weather was perfect!

  • It was cloudy and gloomy, but at least it stayed between 40s-60s! My last 2 marathons were incredibly hot, which was annoying  

• The marathoners started at 7:30 and the half-marathoners started at 7:45 

  • It was a bit chaotic around mile 2-3 because the fast half-marathoners easily caught up to us slower marathon runners

  • I wish we all started at the same time since we wouldn't have to deal with the chaos of fast half-marathoners running into the marathon runners. Additionally, we ran the half-marathon course and didn't split away until mile 13

• The course was incredibly scenic!

  • We ran by the cliffs, the ocean, the beach, and beautiful mansions for most of the route

  • The route had plenty of rolling hills, but it's nothing that we can't handle. The worst part was towards mile 20 since the uphill portion felt like forever

• My major complaints are that the roads were not closed for the second portion of the race

  • When the half-marathoners split off from mile 13, we had a ton of congestion with the finished runners, spectators, traffic, and shuttle busses. It cleared up once we got to mile 14 

  • The out-and-back sections from miles 14-17 were annoying since cars kept driving right next to us

  • The out-and-back sections from 17-22 weren't as bad with traffic at least

• The finish line festival was good since we had beer, plenty of food (bagels, donuts, pizza, cliff bars)

• I would recommend this race more for half-marathoners since there were no out-and-backs and more spectators on the first half

  • If the marathoners didn't have 2 out-and-back portions, I would like the race a bit more

Race Website: Rhode Races & Events