Philadelphia marathon (Read 126 times)

Philadelphia Marathon - The race director is primarily an employee of the city, and he's more appropriately titled as the Parks and Recreation Director or something like that. At least he was an avid runner at one point in his life, and he somewhat knows the game, but he is responsible for many other activities/events in the City and doesn't work only as a race director.  Philadelphia will never be like Chicago, NYC, or Boston, where the race directors are very highly paid race directors, and that is their sole job function. Dave McGillivray makes over $700K/yr to put on the Boston Marathon and work with the BAA.

When former Philadelphia Mayor Nutter ended his term, the new mayor of Philadelphia came in and swapped out all of his predecessor's people for all his people for the roles,  and they resumed responsibility for putting on the race. It could be a bit rocky during a change over, depending on how well things are documented and if the new people were involved with race in the past

The marathon used to have Gore-Tex as a sponsor of the race, and the end term of that contract coincided with the end term of the former mayor. The new mayor solicited a new sponsor and ended up going with a charity, AACR. In other words, things change a lot when the mayor changes and the marathon is put on by the city employees. I think those cities that have a private corporation running their marathons have a nice advantage over a city run marathon since it's their sole focus, they often do it in many cities (i.e., Competitor Group w/ Rock 'n Roll events) and they often want and need positive feedback to generate loyalty among runners, etc.

I'm sure there are pluses and minuses to each model, but these are just some of my observations as a participant in many city races.

FYI: They have different energy gels on the course this year.

This Year: Gatorade Endurance Gels (80calories, 20g carbs, no caffeine)

Last Year: Carb Boom Gels (110calories, 26g carbs, no caffeine).

From FAQ page here: https://philadelphiamarathon.com/faq

Will energy gels be made available on the AACR Philadelphia Marathon and Half Marathon courses?
Yes, Gatorade Energy (Blackberry, Apple Pear and Vanilla)  gels will be available on the Half Marathon course at mile 10 and along the Full Marathon course at miles 10, 17, and 22.

Nice job DigDug2!  Look forward to your report.  I posted over there also.  I went 3:02:23, but that was an 8 minute PR.  The wind was a bully, but I minimized the damage.

I don't know if the signs blew down, but I never saw the 26 mile mark or the 20, and maybe a few others.  It would be nice if there was a bit more of a finish... I mean I guess there was a clock there, but the actual indicator I had that it was time to stop running was that there were a bunch of people standing around in front of me.  A bit anticlimatic.

In keeping with the incompetence of the race, my facebook times didn't post (just 4 still dead links) and the people that signed up for text updates got my 30K time before my half split.  These are not new features and they had similar problems with the half yesterday.  The volunteers on the course were great though, and I love being able to run my local race.