Mountain Memoirs

Chattanooga 7 Bridges Half-Marathon

The race was a complete success! Thanks to all the volunteers and organizers, everything went really well considering it was the first 7 Bridges. There have been some glitches with the results and times, though. Nothing official has been posted, which has led to some condemnation on the 7 Bridges facebook page, but I think there should be some understanding with the fact that these technical problems can happen on a first event. 

First, some really positive things:

-All the swag is awesome, great shirt (some haters didn’t like the orange, but you’re in Tennessee, so you have to kind of expect that.)

-Lots of great volunteers.

-Plenty of hydration.

-Amazing course, but Chattanooga is beautiful so you can’t really go wrong here.

I can only think of a couple things I would suggest:

-Obviously, figure out the timing system so the results can be posted and there’s not a post-apocalyptic freak out a day later when people can’t find out what they ran.

-A large clock at the end wouldn’t hurt either.

-Let’s figure out what we’re naming this thing. It was called the “7 Bridges Marathon”. Ok, I’m cool with that, but then there was the “4 Bridges Half-Marathon” and the “2 Bridges 5k”. I understand it’s calling out the number of times you cross a bridge, but then my shirt says “4 Bridges Marathon”, which is a little odd. I don’t really see why the number of times you cross a bridge should change the entire name. The Marathon is the main event. Might as well just call it the “Chattanooga 7 Bridges Marathon and Half-Marathon”. Or “Marathonooga 7”. Ok, just keep it the way it is…

-I realize you can’t shut down the whole city for this, but going through more of downtown ‘nooga would be a little more scenic.

-This one will come in time, but as the number of participants is raised (supposedly it was sold out at the end) the marathon will gain more and more attention and bigger crowds. 

Overall, it was a huge success, can’t wait for next year, and hopefully the full!

The next race I’m looking at is the Georgia Marathon on March 18, but before that, I’ve got the Ragnar Relay on November 4-5 (chattanooga to nashville) with Team SSR. Check it out! http://www.ragnarrelay.com/about