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Nov 15, 2024

Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon Runner Comments

Back to Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon Information & Reviews

Course 3.8

Organization 4.2

Spectators 4.4

Number of comments: 481 [displaying comments 281 to 291]

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J. F. from Illinois (5/2/2006) "Great event in a great city" (about: 2006) 11-50 previous marathons \| 6+ Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathons COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 This is my 7th CMM and it just keeps getting better every year (wish I could say the same for my times). The organization is first-rate and the locals really seem to enjoy the event as well. Nashville is a great city to spend a long weekend in. The post-race re-hydration on Broadway can't be beat. Looking forward to next year....
R. V. from FL (5/2/2006) "So hilly, but a great race. THANK YOU BNA!" (about: 2006) 4-5 previous marathons \| 1 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 I was so intrigued to run a race organized by Elite Racing, and so glad I did! For this FL girl it felt like Mount Everest was waiting for me at every corner, but the spectators along the course made me forget about that. Positives: 1. Wave Start: I was in Coral 2 and do not agree with the previous comment. Once the elites and Coral 1 left, we were asked to move forward, the rope was lowered, and off we went! Fantastic!!! 2. Water Stops: It is awesome to have them so long and on both sides of the road! Great consistency: there was always PowerAde first in blue cups, and water second in white cups 3. The Timing Checkpoints: at 10, 20, and 30K. It is great to see these times. 4. The Expo: For such a big race, packet pickup was a breeze - in and out in under 10 minutes! Awesome!!! 5. The Crowd: Thank you Nashville! You made every step I took so much easier! Neutral: Not sure if the fruit during the first half was handed out by the race or locals, but watch the banana peels; I saw two people slip on them! Fruit is a great idea, but you have got to clean up quickly! Negatives: NONE. Too bad I am moving to Europe or I would make this an annual event! What the heck... I will probably still take a flight over the pond to run this great race again!
J. K. from Nashville, TN (5/2/2006) "Well-Organized - but Rather Average - and Hilly!" (about: 2006) 2 previous marathons \| 1 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon COURSE: 3 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 4 To be fair - you should take the following with a grain of salt. First, I have only the Chicago and Huntsville (Rocket City) Marathons to compare the CMM to... and this course kicked my ass. I was hoping for a significant PR; instead I had a personal WORST by half an hour. I hurt and hurt bad... still do... so my comments might be a bit harsh. For the record, however - I've lived in Nashville for 5 years... so you think I'd be biased in favor of the event. But, well... it was average. ----------------- SUMMARY: A well-organized, problem-free race, with a course that is far too hilly; the half-marathoners are the focus of the race and get the attention, leaving the marathoners a bit out in the cold. The bottom line is that this is a big half-marathon with an average marathon tacked on. For those doing 13.1, I suspect it's a pretty great race; for marathoners, you can find much better. After Huntsville in December, I was underwhelmed in my hometown. And for the price, the goodie bag is dismal... and the t-shirt is embarrassing. I'm wearing it right now, about to go mow the lawn. About all I'd wear it for. ----------------------------------- THE DETAILS: Starting with the PROS - the good stuff!: 1) Very well organized. Expo volunteers were recruited from the soldiers at Fort Campbell (they got a 72-hour liberty out of the deal!). Can't do better than the military for disciplined, organized volunteer staff. Note: if you can do it, GET TO THE EXPO ON THURSDAY. ON Thursday afternoon, it was empty; I heard it was a mess Friday night. 2) PLENTY of water stations! It seemed I was tripping over water stations every five minutes. I heard it was every 1.5 miles, but it seemed like twice that many. For those averse to tap water, you might not have been pleased (come to think of it... that may have been part of what made ME sick!). If that isn't a problem, you'll have plenty of water. Almost TOO much! 3) Lots of music - and some of the bands were pretty good! (Although I'd sure rather they all played tunes with pounding beats.... Sappy country love songs at mile 18 didn't exactly make me feel like I was in a Rocky training montage, if you know what I mean....) 4) The spectators (when they were around) were generally pretty enthusiastic. The best were some of the frat boys getting wasted on whiskey at 10:00 a.m., offering to share! The cheerleaders were nice. 5) The MEDAL - hard to beat that medal. It weighs about half a ton, and looks sharp! 6) One nice thing about the course - getting a chance to see the front-runners at a few points. That was pretty cool. It was interesting to count the Kenyans and Ethiopians that went by before the first American appeared! Sadly for a hometown boy, that's about all the good stuff I could think of... and now the not-so-good-stuff: ---------------------------------------- THE CONS - stuff that was average or could be improved: 1) THE GOODIE BAG: Dear Lord, some people paid a HUNDRED bucks to run this thing. I paid half that in Huntsville and got a great hat I actually wear training and an awesome high-quality technical shirt. What do you get at Nashville? A crappy t-shirt that you'd frown at if you found it at a local 5K race. It's that bad. And that's ALL you'll get. Oh - and a couple bags of those goofy gel beans. And some airplane peanuts. And you can BUY a finisher shirt, if you'd like... but that's crappy, too. Seriously. Picture a cotton Hanes undershirt with a stick-on decal. There's your hundred bucks. Oh, and you'll get those HORRIBLY overrated Spenco flip-flops, in day-glo... green and yellow. And they HURT. Thank goodness the MEDAL is so nice. For the money, I'm assuming it's gold. 2) The COURSE: this course was decidedly... average. Uninspiring. I live here - and this town is truly beautiful in parts. Some amazing parks to run through on perfect trails. Historical sections of town. This course carefully avoids ANYTHING interesting. Seriously. Picture running NYC, and then picture a course that makes sure you miss the Statue, the bridges, the Empire State Building, Times Square, and every other landmark. That's the CMM. Bo-o-o-ring. Basically it's three out-and-backs. One good thing - they take you by the naked statues that caused a bunch of controversy here in the Bible Belt a few years back. Try not to giggle when you run by. Although the corraled started WAS effective, the course is still over-crowded because of the half-marathoners at the start... and then becomes empty at the end. I mean empty. Between 13-18 and 20-26, spectators are almost non-existent. There were more spectators in Huntsville (can you tell I liked Huntsville?) in 25-degree weather than there were on mile 15 of this race. Which brings me to: 3) THE COURSE PART II: That !%!%!^#$ little hill at mile 15.5 when you come down off the river trail. (Speaking of the river... it was BEAUTIFUL. I live here and never noticed how awe-inspiring the Cumberland was. The best part of the course by far. Ignore the complaints about the trail - it's very nice. But there's a problem: with the river comes WIND! There must have been 40 mph headwind gusts there. On the plus side, I stopped and rescued a baby turtle trying to cross the path. And yes, that was my favorite part of the whole race. :)) Back to that stupid little hill when you come off the trail.... I laughed when I read about it, laughed at all the whiners. I even laughed when I saw it - hell, it's maybe 40 yards long, if that. But it is steep. Dangerously steep. It kills the quads. It is stupid. Doesn't belong in a BQ marathon. Fix it. Speaking of hills.... 4) The COURSE - PART III: this course is HILLY. I know this town, I train here. I'd read the comments here, with half the people griping about the hills and the other half saying they weren't bad. Make no mistake - it IS hilly. Not necessarily steep hills or dramatic hills, but they never end. It seems you're always going up or down. I thought I was ready. I wasn't. Consider yourself warned. Hilly, hilly, hilly. Not necessarily a bad thing... but don't believe a word of the "not too hilly" stuff. 5) The medical staff: remember the Great Turtle Incident of 2006? Right about the same place, I came across a woman clearly in distress, having some kind of asthma attack. I had no cell phone (I was the only one who stopped by the way... nice, huh?). So I had to run ahead to the nearest aid station. Which just happens to be at the bottom of that frickin' little hill at 15.5. I tell the staff there's a woman who might really need help... and they basically blew me off. "Oh, we've got someone headed back there in a while," they say, then go back to gossiping and chattering. Color me unimpressed. If you have any medical conditions, you just might wanna bring your own cell phone on this course. Self-rescue might be more efficient. 6) The frickin' half-marathon and the half-marathoners: To be fair, it's not their fault - but if you've only run full marathons before, the half-marathoners will bug the heck out of you. I'll repeat what I said above: this is NOT really a marathon at all... it's a HALF-marathon with a smallish marathon tacked on. There were almost 15,000 half-marathon finishers; there were just 4,000 marathon finishers. You can do the math and guess where the emphasis is, right? Just be ready for it. It's not necessarily all bad, just different. The pacing is different, the attitude is different. Be ready for a lot of people around you to start picking up that pace at mile 10 or so. It was a bit disconcerting (especially since I lost that cutie I was following since mile 5!). It goes from being frustratingly overcrowded at times... to suddenly empty after Elvis (no joke) splits you off from the halfers. Suddenly it's damn near empty. I mean really empty. Very, very little crowd support from 13-18 and from 20-26. Lots of hills and no cheering. Maybe that's why so many people were walking so slowly. At points it looked like a History Channel special on the Bataan Death March. But with numbers and cool visors. :) Maybe it's just me... but from now on if I'm doing the marathon, I'm looking for events that are JUST marathons, or run the events separately. This was a BIG con for me. Might not be an issue for some... but then again, I didn't think it'd bother me. It did. I suppose that leads me to a final note on the course: splitting off at 11 so close to the halfers' finish is just plain cruel to the full marathoners; running RIGHT BY the finish at mile 20 is downright malicious. Again, might just be my personal preference... but I'd sure rather not see the finish... until I'm finishing. And all those chipper half-marathoners so happy to be finished milling about everywhere? Ugh. -------------------------------------- There you have it! I'd probably recommend this race for first-timers and walkers - and like I said, I think it's probably a great race for the half-marathoners. For a marathon, it was decidedly average. Well-organized but otherwise unimpressive. But I will be back. Because I lost this round. CMM 1 - me 0. That course kicked my ass... which may explain some of the above. But I'm BQing here next time around... and then never doing it again. There are better races. Lots of 'em. And frankly, there could be a much, MUCH better one right here in Nash Vegas. Maybe next year. I heard it was actually a lot worse in years past. Did I mention I got a nice medal out of the deal? (There, I ended positive!)
R. A. from Alabama (5/2/2006) "first-timer" (about: 2006) 1 previous marathon \| 1 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 This was my first marathon. I thought it was a well organized event, especially considering the number of people. Wow! I will say that I had heard about how hilly the course is before I registered but was still willing to take on the challenge. (I think it was actually hillier than I expected.) I was challenged, to say the least, from mile 20 on, and managed to complete the course in 4:31:19 (was hoping to break 4:30... oh, well). Thanks Nashville for a great first-time-marathon experience!
E. E. from Newport Beach, CA (5/2/2006) "Well organized, mileage off, very humid" (about: 2006) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 I thought this was a very well run marathon. Course seemed a little long. I used my Garmon GPS, which indicated 26.82 miles and I checked with others wearing their GPS who reported similar readings. Even with Kenyans doing 5 minute miles, winning time should be closer to 2 hours and 10 minutes, not 2 hours and 15 minutes. The second half of the marathon is very boring and lacks support. Shirts for the marathon were not designed as nice as the half marathon's.
R. N. from Northern, VA (5/2/2006) "Gets better each year." (about: 2006) 6-10 previous marathons \| 2 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathons COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 3 This is the second time I've run this and about fifth race I've done with this promoter. Everything went flawlessly this year except I wish they'd ditch swill like PowerAde and go back to the PowerBar Endurance drink. The course, while not excessively hilly, is far from flat. Nashville is a beautiful city and you see much of it on this course.
T. R. from Houston, TX (5/2/2006) "Great city, great course, but micro-managed" (about: 2006) 50+ previous marathons COURSE: 5 ORGANIZATION: 2 FANS: 4 The central core of this race, i.e., the course and runner support, are very good. However, getting to the core leaves a lot to be desired in the CMM. I found everything in this race excessively micro-managed to the point that the participant has very little flexibility to plan his/her own logistics. If you like being hearded like cattle, you'll love this race. Race management could do a lot to ease tensions and promote more independence (which is a good thing) by addressing the following: Move packet pickup away from the NCC. Parking is a joke for marathoners trying to get their packets. Forget the stupid packet PU verification card. It serves no purpose. Either combine the start/finish lines or provide FREE shuttles back to the start line. Post-race food was terrible for a marathon this size. Keep non-participants out of post-race food. Provide more bottled water to runners exiting the food area. I needed more water, but I couldn't fight my way back to get it. Free beer would be a nice touch too!
J. D. from Cleveland (5/2/2006) "Lots of hills" (about: 2006) 11-50 previous marathons \| 1 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 4 FANS: 5 The course was given four stars because it was well planned with plenty of straight aways and not many sharp turns. There were several hills, and actually the course starts uphill, which makes this course challenging. I would recommend this course for veteran runners, but not for a beginner. The organization was given four stars and not five because of two points: first, the volunteers need to be trained on how to properly hand out water to the runners; on two occasions I reached for water and the person pulled back and gave it to the runner in back of me. This is not right. The other part that needs help with organization is the price. I have been running marathons for 11 years and we used to pay $25-$35 and have a bag full of goodies. This race cost $89.00 and had a bad T-shirt and a skimpy goodie bag. The spectators were good - everywhere on the course you see people cheering for you - and the City of Nashville was encouraging after the race, congratulating us on our accomplishment.
s. k. from georgia (5/1/2006) "An overall great experience!" (about: 2006) 3 previous marathons \| 1 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathon COURSE: 5 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 My first CMM. I am surprised by negative comments from past years ~ but obviously race directors took notice and made improvements. I found the course, city involvement, traffic control, spectators, cheering sections, live music, water and aid stations, organization, and expo all GREAT! I personally enjoyed and appreciated the "friendliness" of this race toward "mid-packers"!I had loud, enthusiastic spectators cheering me to the finish line even at my 5-hour-plus time! (I only wish that energy gels were available along the course, instead of energy beans.)
J. M. from Bowling Green, KY (5/1/2006) "A Good Marathon with A Huge Half Marathon" (about: 2006) 11-50 previous marathons \| 4-5 Rock 'n' Roll Country Music Marathons COURSE: 4 ORGANIZATION: 5 FANS: 5 The Country Music Marathon has evolved into a really good event over seven years, but that event is really a huge half marathon. In 2006, the marathon had just over 4,000 finishers and the half had almost 15,000. The two races start at the same time and cover the same course for the first 11 miles. So it is quite a crowd scene, with all the excitement and all the problems one would anticipate. Adding on the fairly difficult course profile and the generally warm weather, Nashville is not a PR race. On the other hand, it is a lot of fun, if you like a big marathon. I don't, but I do this one because it is close and easy; then I do a smaller one in the fall. Everything is well-organized except for traffic into the parking and bussing area at the Titan's stadium. I zip right in on secondary roads, while others are caught forever on the overcrowded interstates. Better directions in the packets and a few electric signs and state police cars on the interstates could solve this problem, but it gets worse every year. As other folks have indicated Nashville is a great place to visit, even if you don't like country music, so if you do want a good marathon coupled to a huge half marathon - then come on down!

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