Running an inaugural event has it's glamour, but generally there will be organizational growing pains involved. For instance the elevation map they initially had on their website looked more like a heart attack graph and trust me, the hills did elevate the heart rate. It was a very hilly course and the weather provided pouring rain and 40 mph winds throughout the race. No one would run a PR unless it was their first marathon in this nightmare scenario, but it was a very beautiful course.
So many runners registered at the last minute that there were not enough finisher medals (both the half and full marathon finishers received the same medal), but they were smart enough to ensure all the full marathon finishers received their medals that day fortunately. Bellingham Bay has learned from the first year and are capping the field so they don’t have that same medal shortage again, changing the course a bit and not running the marathon on the same day as the Portland marathon again.
In retrospect I am glad this race was so painful for me as my time was 30 minutes slower then normal. I may not have run “Tri-Cities” and “ Seattle” had I had a PR and I would not now be a marathon maniac perhaps, so I will run race their second marathon in 2008 and pray the weather is better.
