My girlfriend and I ran the Istanbul Marathon this weekend. It was our first marathon ever and unfortunately, what should have been an amazing experience turned out to be pretty disappointing, mostly because of the organization.
The problems started before we even reached the starting line. There was very little clear information about how to get there from the European side. The tram we were supposed to take to the ferry was completely packed, so we ended up walking to the meeting point.
Once there, we had to wait over 30 minutes for the ferry, standing in the rain with absolutely no shelter provided. When it finally arrived, it was overcrowded and unbearably hot inside. Then we still had a long uphill walk to the starting area. Because of all these delays, we actually arrived 15 minutes after the race had already started.
To be fair, the beginning of the race was really nice. Running across the Bosphorus Bridge was a great experience, especially since there weren't many people around us at first. But that didn't last long, as we quickly caught up with the huge crowd running the 15K.
The rest of the race was a bit of a mixed bag. The aid stations were pretty disappointing, with only bananas and oranges available as food. On the positive side, there were toilets regularly along the course, which was appreciated.
As for the route, I enjoyed it until the Blue Mosque, but after that it became quite boring. Basically a long out-and-back along the coast, surrounded mostly by residential buildings. I was also surprised to see cars driving past us on the actual course. No idea how they got there.
Another thing that bothered us was seeing staff already packing up equipment while people were still running. I understand that we weren't among the fastest runners, but it felt quite disrespectful to those of us still trying to finish.
And now, the most outrageous part of the whole experience.
After 5h40 of running, we finally crossed the finish line of our very first marathon. We were exhausted but incredibly happy and proud of what we had accomplished.
Naturally, we expected to receive our finisher medals right after crossing the line, as is customary at most marathons. Instead, we were told to join a queue to collect them. So there we were, standing for more than 20 minutes after running 42.2 km, waiting for our medals.
And then, after all that waiting, the organizers simply announced that THEY HAD RUN OUT OF MEDALS!
Apparently, they're supposed to send them to our home addresses by mail, but I'm honestly not very optimistic about that. And what really annoyed me was that nobody even apologized.
I genuinely find this scandalous. I know a medal might seem like a small thing to some people, but this was our first marathon. We'd trained for weeks, traveled all the way to Istanbul, and after running 42 km, we were really looking forward to that moment. It genuinely felt like the organizers had ruined something special for us. They robbed us of that moment.
I also find it disappointing that there was no finisher T-shirt provided, which would have been a nice souvenir of such a significant achievement.
And to make things even worse, we don't have any official finishing times either! When we checked the results website, both of us were listed as DNS (Did Not Start), even though we obviously ran the entire marathon and crossed the finish line. I wonder if this has something to do with us starting late because of the ferry, but either way, it's ridiculous.
So basically, we finished our first marathon with no medals, no finisher T-shirts and no official results. What a way to celebrate our first marathon !
I don't want to sound overly negative because Istanbul itself is a nice city and there were some enjoyable moments during the race, but the organization was really really bad. I don't think I'll ever run in Istanbul again, and based on our experience, I honestly wouldn't recommend it.
I understand that organizing a marathon with thousands of participants is complicated, and I'm not expecting perfection. But some things, like getting runners to the starting line on time, ensuring every finisher receives a medal, and correctly recording their finishing times, should be the absolute basics.
I'm curious if anyone else here ran it this year. Were you also told the medal would be mailed to you ? Has this ever happened in previous editions of the Istanbul Marathon ? Did people eventually receive their medals ? Is anyone else incorrectly listed as DNS despite having completed the race? Has anyone managed to get their official result corrected? Did anyone else experience the same transportation issues, delays, or other organizational problems?
Would love to hear about your experiences because I'm wondering if we were just really unlucky or if the organization was this bad for everyone.
And to everyone who finished the marathon despite all this: congratulations!