Serengeti Safari Marathon

One interesting Marathon this was :D. Although there are about 400 people or more for the entire event, only about 15 did the full marathon of which 10 fast african runners. The start of all distances except 5km is at 8km inside the park. From there you will run 8km back to the park entrance, you might see a few impalas along this part. The rest is all tarmac road and the full marathon has a different route than the 21k and 10k. This means for the full marathon you will most probably run all by yourself and there will be no audience along the route, the daily african life is there but almost no one will cheer you up. Also the full marathon is 42km in the burning sun (bring suncream!), especially because the start will not be at 6am but rather 7 or 8am. Another point to note is you will only get water along the route apart from at the turning point, where you get coke and fruits. As the finish is hours later than the 21km finish, nobody seemed to notice my finish haha. The communication with the organizers was obviously african style, meaning you need patience :D. In the end I got my racekit delivered around midnight before the race. Now that I am writing I would like to recommend to stay in Bunda at; TEMBEA MARA. Wonderful place to relax, nice host who prepares a LOT pasta for you days before your race and there will most probably be other runners too. Even though it was super tough, I found it an amazingly interesting and nice new marathon adventure :). If you finish this one, you will finish most marathons!

The route is basically a long line that doubles back on itself to the main gate of the park. Around 7kms is in the park, and then the rest is a dirt track to the lake and back. The marathon was not well organized, we had to email and call the organizers quite a few times to know where to go to get our T Shirt and Number, and there were no signs in Lamadai town, so it was quite stressful. The race also started a full hour later than they said so we all showed up at 5, moved at 6 and started at 7am. Good provision of water, drinks, glucose, fruit on the route. I would do it again, as the crowd were cheerful and supportive, and the location is stunning.

The route is mostly flat, 4km asphalt. It rained the night before so I used my older running shoes. Not too much mud though. Funny to run past fresh elephant dung!

I had a chance to interact with many people and the races were well organized with modern medical services, can't wait this year 2020.

the race points were well designed and turnup point was something funny in design

i had a chance to see some animals like Giraffe, Buffalo etc

The rout was good but next time make sure we start early be for the sun

Nice

I loved the routes the services and the crowd...was so lovely

Awesome route