Mexico City Marathon

The crowds were amazing! Boston level crowds plus Mexican uniqueness. The crowd hands out candy, food, water, beer, tequila shots, sponges, all sorts of things. The official race support is also good, lots of water and Gatorade stops. One Maureen gel stop. Now for the bad, at least 5k of cobblestones, lots of uneven pavement and a few narrow choke points that reduced the course to walking, not many bathrooms along course past 10k, tons at the start and tons at the finish. Main problem for me was if you don't speak Spanish you're completely in the dark. The worst is the number of slow runners that somehow got into corrals they shouldn't have been or just jumped onto the course. Lots of race bandits and course cutting at this race. Like thousands, more than 10% of the race.

The race organizers want it to be an international race but there were only 550 international runners this year, a record. None of the race info is provided in English, only one person at the race expo spoke English and on top of that provided incorrect information, in general no one in the city speaks or is willing to speak English . In general the communication is very poor.

Best place to stay for finish is near the Zocolo. There are free buses the morning of leaving a few blocks from the finish but also several routes around the city that take you to the start. Find the bus route map and stay near one of those if not at the finish. There is no after party finish the race and go home pretty much. The prerace situation is very organized with corals and corresponding bands and each group is walked to the starting line as the wave is released. Put down your fastest ever marathon time. They don’t seem to be verifying race times. I was weaving through slow runners all the way to the end of the race and very thick through 18-20 miles.

You will visit the main locations of one of the largest cities in the world. Great course, people cheering along the way. The weather is not a guarantee, it will most likely be warm and a bit humid and the altitude makes it very challenging, if you are preparing for an ultra marathon or looking for a PB elsewhere, this is the long distance preparation for your competition. The city and its people are awsome.

Stay with the plan, the altitude and the heat you will begin to feel after the first half, stay hydrated and take your gels on time. It is preferable that you only drink from the hydration in the official places of the race. People can give you rum and coke or beer in little plastic bags. The course is now different. It's the same course that is shown on this website but only the finish line is now the start line and the start line is now the finish line which makes it a little bit easier because now you start to go downhill.

Look for a hotel close to the finish line, there are many nice hotel within a mile or 2 from it. To get to the start line is better to get a hotel taxi service because the uber service is saturated and is not a guarantee. Be there at least 1 hours before it starts.