St. Jude Memphis Marathon

This was my first marathon and it's in my hometown which makes me partial, but I loved it. It's a tough course with rolling hills, but there's pretty good crowd support throughout and several areas are easy to navigate for spectators to help with the runner's morale or equipment. Running through the St. Jude campus is the most special part, but I think it's a great race. Weather can vary quite a bit considering it's fall/early winter in the south, so keep that in mind. After party is great as well!

It's very hilly throughout, but I used a pace ban from this website to help with pacing throughout, which was spot on! Definitely, don't get carried away by the amount of support in the first half and go too fast because it will make the last 10k tough.

Stay in a hotel downtown or in midtown, and there are lots of restaurant options in both areas.

There is one reason to run this race: St. Jude. I fundraise for St. Jude with a race each year, and I wanted to do the pinnacle race in Memphis. I loved the experience as a hero and the tour of the hospital was amazing. Unfortunately we unseasonably hot weather (70 degrees and sunny) for the race. That combined with the hills on the course made this a really tough day. There were thunderstorms in the morning, so the race was delayed by an hour. The 5k/10k start an hour before the half/full marathon for some reason, so that meant we didn't start until 9am when it was nice and sunny. The course is continuous rolling hills - my Garmin Fenix 5X put it at 722 feet of elevation gain. You are always going up a hill. In 2018, there was no Gatorade on the course - just Nuun. I love some Nuun, but it was not meant to be used during extended activity. Run this race for St. Jude, not for a fast time.

Don't hope for a PR on this course. Plan to enjoy yourself and celebrate St. Jude. Expect lots of hills. The first half of the marathon is downtown and the streets are wide. Even while trying to run tangents, I ran an extra .35 miles in the first 11 miles due to the layout of the course.

The crowd support is the highlight of this race. The people of Memphis are clearly very proud of St. Jude's, justifiably so. I heard many comments from locals about how wonderful the hospital is and how grateful they are to have it as part of their community. The thing that needs to be clear if you're planning to enter this race is that the main purpose is to raise money for the hospital. In fact, it is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the hospital. Importantly, St. Jude's does not send bills to families, so they rely on external funding to keep the hospital running. Once you register, you receive frequent (1-2/week) emails from the race about fundraising. Fast times and catering to people who are vying for BQs, PRs, or age group awards is a secondary (or tertiary) consideration.

The Expo continues to play up the fundraising nature of the event. After you get your bib and race packet, the first room you enter has St. Jude's marathon related swag. Only after you've paid, do you enter the rest of the Expo where more typical race vendors are present.

I was pretty disappointed that they ran out of safety pins at the expo. How is that even possible? Not surprisingly, the surrounding convenience stores were also sold out of safety pins. This was just one more sign that the race was secondary consideration to the fund raising.

Make sure you line up early to get into the correct corral. The corrals were jam packed and virtually impossible to move forward. Strangely, there were a large number of people trying to move from the front corrals to ones further back. I've never seen this before.

For much of the race, you are limited to one road lane and you're packed in. Specifically, despite running on a 4 lane road, two lanes remained open to vehicular traffic and one lane was closed to provide a buffer between runners and cars. This leaves one lane for runners, which isn't a big deal at mile 10, but at mile 1 you're shoulder to shoulder with other runners with no hope of passing. Again, if you're in the correct corral, it's probably fine. If you have problems going out too fast, you'll be forced to reign it in. However, it you're not in the correct corral, you'll find yourself trapped with no help of moving up where you need to be.

The other tight spot on the course is the finish where you run 50 meters or so through a chute onto the Memphis Redbirds baseball field. Again, if it were just marathoners, it probably would be fine, but you end up getting trapped behind half-marathon walkers who are there for fund raising or to cross an item off their bucket list and are walking 4+ across and impeding the flow of traffic.

Some people try to down play the hills on the course. It's hilly, make no mistake about it.

The weather was absolutely fantastic. 40F at the start and 60F at the finish.

There are plenty of downtown hotels that are within easy walking distance to the start/finish. Book really early, because they do fill up. Our hotel had a sign posted at the front desk that said you are staying in the entertainment/sports district so expect loud noise coming from the street until wee hours of the morning. I suspect this is true most weekends other than marathon weekend. There was a lot of noise coming from the street until Friday at 10 PM or so, but things were quite after that. I didn't notice any significant noise Saturday night either. I suspect that on Friday, most people staying downtown are going to bed early and on Saturday, they are too tired from their race to go out and party too much.

Bottom Line;

Pros:
-Crowd support
-Weather

Cons
-Too much emphasis on fund raising
-Does not cater to faster runners

Keys
-Book your hotel early
-Stay downtown
-Line up early

Overall, it was an ok experience, but as someone vying for age group awards, I won't likely be back.

The weather was great, the spectators are excellent and frequent, the run through St Jude's campus will leave you inspired, and the food at the end is plentiful (and included beer)! This is the most welcoming city that lives its marathoners, and you will hear a 'thank you' everywhere you go. Aid stations aplenty and packed with enthusiastic volunteers. The police are everywhere helping at intersections. What an outpouring, and it makes the event amazing.

The hills are minimal. There are enough shady spots on the course that the weather stays ok even as the sun warms up.

If you stay at one of the recommended downtown hotels, you will easily be able to walk to/Friday m the packet expo, start, and finish.

This was my first marathon and I loved all the crowd support and running through St. Jude hospital. However, I felt this marathon was not really geared towards serious runners. They should of had the 5K, 10K, and relay races on a different day. It was extremely congested until about mile 4 or so! I was also a little disappointed in the course, especially the last 5 miles... no one wants to loop around and have a slight incline at the very end of a marathon! Ugh! And nothing to see the last 5 or 6 miles.

Packet pickup was a pain. Parking was not super close. Had to park in a garage and pay.

I thought it was well organized and supported. The spectators were amazing and it is to benefit a great cause.

The Nuun energy drink supplied at the aid stations immediately caused me GI distress and I shouldn't have taken any since I've never used it before. Most races have Gatorade or Poweraide and this is what I train with. I think this was a poor choice by the race organizers.

I have nothing but praise for how this event was organized and ran. I was in the 2nd corral, so I got to start very close to race time. There were 3 minutes between the start of each corral and I would have not liked being farther back and thus waiting a long time to start. The pacing group I was in (3:10) was spot on through 19, when I had to start slowing d/t GI distress.

Excellent energy from the crowd and other racers. Great cool weather. Some rolling hills, but not too tough of a course.

Peabody Hotel is right at the start and finish line, so an excellent choice

Great crowd support and running through the St. Jude campus is an awesome experience.

Arrive early, the Memphis course is not flat.

Run as a St. Jude hero for a rock star experience.

Great crowd support and atmosphere. Great weather with rolling hills. Good post race food.

Stay near the start line.

Great course for an even better cause. Running through the St. Jude campus during mile 5 was AMAZING!! The crowd support was great and there were aid stations every mile. I will definitely be back to this one!

The course has some small rolling hills but nothing too bad. The last 6 miles are more downhill. This is a great course to PR on!

There are usually plenty of nice hotels around the area you can find and we always seem to stay somewhere decent for around $60.