I enjoyed this marathon, PR’d by two minutes. EXPO was ok, but no SWAG to speak of really. The shirt was pretty nice and I am happy with the medal. Overall the course is pretty good, the one problem I had with it was the bike path portion on the beach from around miles 4-9 or so. I was really crowded on that path and pretty slow and was having to weave through people and occasionallly had to get off the path onto the sand to get past slower groups. I feel like I expended a lot of energy having to do this. Other than that, I liked the course. Best part was running through the Long Beach State campus, the students there were REALLY loud and there support was really uplifting when I started to feel bad out there around mile 18.
The post race festival wasn’t much to speak of but there are plenty of restraunts in the area to go to. I celebrated my finish at the Yard House and the place was packed with runners. Overall I liked this race, I would consider running here again. B-