The Lansing Marathon Preview: The Race Overview

This is what the original Lansing Marathon course looked like.

Then, somewhere around the beginning of the year, they changed it. Now, I’ll be fair. This is the inaugural running of the LM, so I don’t expect them to have all of their ducks in a perfect row…like say a particular marathon with over 100 years of history. So, when the LM webpage describes the starting and finishing locations differently on two different unique pages, I can live with that. What bothers me is the supposed 'interactive map’ is simply a list of directions written out. That’s all. First, there is nothing ‘interactive’ about that map. Now, it does say that the ‘interactive map’ is ‘coming soon,’ but it has always said that. Second, they need a lesson on what the word ‘soon’ actually means. I mean, how hard is it to cut and paste a map of the course onto your webpage? In fact, please feel free to steal the one I've provided below. These Michigan marathons, also in their inaugural running, seemed to have figured it out.

With that background information, the new course looks like this. (Yes, pictures are all you get for now, as I’ll go into the elevation and nuances of the course in another post.)

Because Red and I live so close to Lansing (and yes, my new header picture is of the Lansing skyline) I’ve scripted as many of my long runs to take place on the marathon course itself. Last week was my first go, and aided by the unseasonable warm temperatures of 42 degrees and sunny, I did a 13M run. Much of the marathon curse is on roads that do not have sidewalks (or even bike lanes for that matter), but with weather like we had last week it doesn’t matter as the streets were open for business.

Sadly, last Friday the skies opened up and dumped enough snow to make my 15M on Sunday a very difficult run. Just the typical Michigan winter training long run full of approximately 30% of sidewalks cleared, forcing you to slow and try to avoid turning your ankle as you run on partly crushed and frozen packed snow/ice. And where there were no sidewalks, any shoulder was covered in that two inch deep thick slush that clings to your shoes and soaks your socks while providing no grip, creating that wonderful slip and slide feeling. Still, I got my second consecutive long run on much of the course itself (13 of my 15 miles were on the actual course).

Finally, for those who care. Adidas has begun to sell the 2012 BM gear, and the colors are red and black. They also seemed to have fixed the embroidery problem they had with last years official jackets.