Well…just wanted to let everyone who told me South Africa is a great destination…you were right.  Let’s start with the marathon.  The communication before the marathon via e-mail was consistent and informative.  The Expo number pick up was efficient and better organized than most of the others I have seen.

This marathon is fairly new – only seven years old – and usually when they are that young they are a disaster.  The corrals and starting area is usually a mess.  They usually do not start on time and people have to climb fences and push and shove to get in the right corrals.  These guys had it set-up so the corrals filled like they had a conveyor belt and the race started right on time.

The course itself was great.  Most of the roads were newly paved and all the hills were rolling or long grades without a bunch of steep hills.

The biggest problem lately has been the lack of water stops and/or people manning them.  This one was one continuous water stop.  The had tons of help and plenty of choices to drink. Plenty of police at the intersections and spectators were pretty much along the whole course.

Then the finish line was really cool.  The last few hundred yards was on a plush blue padded carpet that felt like heaven after 26.2 miles of pavement.  They whisked you right alone and there was no hold up to get out of the finish area.

Then to top it off the weather they ordered was perfect…55 degrees at the start and 65 degrees at the finish and big blue skies!

The last thing I wanted to point out was that Marathon Tours set this up for us.  It was their first Cape Town Marathon tour and they knock it out of the box.  The cocktail party and the dinner the night before the marathon was attended by some recent finishers of the 7 Continents and they had a lot of great stories to tell to the three people who were finishing the next day. 

I will do a follow up on our overall South Africa trip this week while we are on safari.