Hard to believe it’s almost October! We have spent the last few months gathering feedback and preparing for what we hope is the best Chattanooga Marathon yet in 2018. A lot of that feedback was about the courses and what you all thought of them. The number one comment we got was that the half marathon runners wanted to run over the bridges. The second comment we got most often was that participants wanted the option to run farther with their friends or running buddies before the half marathon and marathon courses split. With this information in mind, we have decided to go to a two-loop marathon course for 2018. Now we know some of you marathon folks might be turned off initially by this, but hang with me, I think this is a good thing for everyone!

I’ll start by saying that we have been incredibly fortunate to have the race cover so much of Chattanooga and gave people the chance to see so much of this amazing city for the last two years. One of the struggles we faced was that it required a tremendous amount of man power and traffic control by the city and created some traffic issues around town. This new course will drastically cut down on that negative traffic impact, showcase our beautiful city and help ensure we have many more years of support by the community.

A two loop marathon course also means you see fellow runners and friends for the entire race instead of spread out or sporadic as in previous years with a one loop course. It also makes the race much more spectator friendly so everyone’s cheerleaders on the course can see them more often!

Now for the good stuff… The half marathon will get to run over the Veterans Bridge and the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge! The half marathon course will keep a similar elevation gain, while the marathon course will become flatter than in previous years. The two courses will run together for 13 miles now, so those of you that are in different races but want to run the course together can now do that! Maps are coming soon but we are excited about this and hope you will be too.

Quick run-down of the course…

Start in front of High Point Climbing on Broad Street. Run down Broad to MLK, over to Market, Down to 20^th/Riverfront Parkway, around and through Ross’s Landing and then up to Battery Place area. From there, take the cut through to Veterans Bridge and over the river, then down to Frazier, back across the Walnut Street Bridge, shoot over to UTC on 3^rd, run through Campus, take MLK/Bailey out to the National Cemetery, around that and then Main Street back towards Finley Stadium. Just before the finish line, the marathon will split from the half course and do that loop again.

Brian Myrick

Race Director