Fast Running Blog

Has anyone run either the Richmond or the Memphis (St. Judes) marathons? I want to run a Fall marathon but I won't be ready in October so I'm considering one of those two and wanted some input. I seem tyo recall Sasha ran Memphis but maybe I'm hallucinating. I'd love thoughts particularly on the course toughness and the level of competition.

http://sasha.fastrunningblog.com/blog-12-01-2007.html

I've run Richmond as well. I would say the courses are comparable. St. Jude is more competitive, but the prize money goes deeper. The probability of coming home with cash with a 2:30 is about the same. However, if you run 2:20, I believe you'll come home with a bigger paycheck from St. Jude.

The difference in courses is that St. Jude is constantly rolling up and down, but those are micro-rollers. Hardly ever more than 1%, but hardly one flat spot on the course. Richmond has more noticeable hills, and not as much rolling. If you go up you go up, if you go down you go down.

If I had to choose one of the two for the fastest time I would probably choose St. Jude. However, I would prefer Rocket City over both of them.

As far as elite treatment, all three offer comp/hotel to a sub-2:30 guy. Richmond in 2003 paid the airfare for sub-2:22. St. Jude told me in 2007 they were not paying anybody's airfare. But they did airport pickup, which was nice. Rocket City in 2003 was giving $250 to places 4-12, which was essentially travel money with budget under control. But since then their sponsor (local newspaper)  has not been doing so well, so now they just have 1-2-3 money. Of all three I was most impressed with Rocket City. They did all of that stuff with only 1000 people in the race! I had a feeling they understand competitive running. If other marathons matched their level of commitment we might see 300 sub-2:20 guys in the US, with 30 under 2:10.