For the past few years, the OKC Memorial Marathon has always had the same course. start out in front of the Memorial Museum, run through downtown, past the state capital, up towards Gorilla Hill, turn around at Lake Hefner, run down Classen Curve, and finish at Automobile Alley. With so many new things that have been added to OKC these last few years, and with the addition of the Scissor-tail park being built for 2020, This years race was the first phase of changing the course to include new sights along the course.
We start off like you normal because it's the reason why you run the Memorial, a 168 second moment of silence to remember those who we lost in the OKC bombing. This year, they finally set up a waterfall corrals with 5 minutes in between so it makes the start of your race less crowded. Most of the big hills are within the first half of the marathon. Going south on the over path towards the scissortail park construction, going north on the overpath going towards downtown. Mickey Mantle drive just before mile 4 and Gorilla Hill at mile 8. Gorilla Hill is still one of the best spot along the race because of their crowd support. Inflatables, costumes, spectators & volunteers handing out bananas, water, alcohol, food, you name it, there was probably someone where handing it out. I felt bad for the Half runners because they missed out on most of the experience because they made the Half runners split onto the other side of the road to where they didn't to run near the inflatables.
After Gorilla Hill, The half splits off from the Full & Relay runners. You experience small rolling hills throughout the rest of the race until you get to Classen Curve. At Mile 17 at an overpath near Lake Hefner is the turn around point as you make your way back towards the finish on NW Grand blvd. Woods park has some beautiful scenery and great support & spectators cheering you on.
Once you hit Classen Curve at mile 20-21, it's nothing but a 4 mile gradual incline but you have the longest line of crowd support encouraging you to finish strong.
This years finish line is at the corner of Hudson & Sheridan, in front of the Devon tower and Myriad Garden where you get your medal and post race fuel. Afterwards, you make your way towards the Garden for your finisher t-shirt, post race picture, results & 26.2 brew beer!
Overall, this was a great race for my first Full Marathon & i would recommend this race to anyone who wants to participate. I've heard some negative things about the Half Marathon because of Gorilla Hill, Not being able to run on Classen & running a lot of hills. So, I haven't decided yet on what distance i'll be running next year but I expect it to be a huge race since it'll be the 20th Anniversary of the Memorial Marathon & for those who ran either the half or full it this year and in 2020, they get a commemorative coin. All i know is that i will always run the Memorial because of what it means to me and everyone else who lives here in Oklahoma.