50th Marine Corps Marathon 2025

On October 26, 2025, I ran in the 50th Marine Corps Marathon. The full race FPV/POV video can be viewed on YouTube here: 50th Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) 2025 Full Race FPV/POV

This race occurred during the government shutdown. There was a lot of anxiety on whether the race would happen as the Army Ten-Miler waited to practically last minute to say their race would occur, past where a lot of people cancelled travel reservations. Thankfully it was announced that Marine Corps Marathon would indeed happen further in advance. It would be a terrible tragedy to cancel a 50th birthday celebration.

Unfortunately, the curse continues and I was feeling sick days before the race. Before the race, I decided I wanted to go for broke. And break I did. I found my limit. I definitely put in a lot more effort than I should have considering my condition race day. But I got to the end and even set a new best marathon time!

Travel

Living in the area, I took the metro to Pentagon station at open, 5:00am. The station was not prepared for the volume since when we got to the station, there was a mob of people on the platform trying to get on to the escalator to exit the station. People were one-by-one tapping the fare gate to exit. The train I arrived on was unable to leave for minutes because people were blocking the doors trying to find space on the platform to go. Eventually, as another train arrived, the station manager opened the fare gates so nobody needed to tap payment on the readers. Once outside the station, it was just over a mile walk to the Runner’s Village.

In the afternoon, the Rosslyn station that is nearest to the finish line was closed (apparently due to escalator problems), so the next closest option was Court House station. Fortunately, I stayed in the area to eat so by the time I left, around 4pm, there was no line to get into the station and go home. When the train got to Rosslyn station, there were people on the platform so they must have reopened the station at some point after crowds cleared. As it is said, escalators don’t break, they temporarily become stairs.

Expo

The MCM Expo was at Gaylord Convention Center in National Harbor.

I purchased bib mail-out for 2024 since I didn’t want to travel to the expo. However, I didn’t purchase it this year because I thought I had time to purchase it but by summer time, when the race sold out, it was no longer available for purchase. So I had no choice but to visit the expo. Although, the main reason I didn’t want to visit the expo in 2024 was because since I knew I would run two marathons a week apart, I wanted to maximize my time spent on rest to recover. Hartford was 2 weeks ago which is double the recovery time.

I went to the Expo Friday. To get to the expo, I took the metro since they offered shuttle buses from the Eisenhower Station to the expo. I don’t recall they offered buses years prior. The shuttle bus ride was about 15min between the expo and metro station. There was some waiting for the bus to fill up to depart but there was no long line or delay taking or waiting for the shuttles. There were several buses in queue so ample supply, just hop onboard.

The line to get into the expo was long but moved quickly. I got there around 11:30am and showed my barcode and ID in about 20 minutes to get my bib and stuff. I didn’t purchase any merchandise but the line looked very long and winding. I did hear that a lot of items were sold out, and it took over an hour in line to check out.

Carb Loading

Since I am a lower weight, I need fewer carbs. Since the race was Sunday, I started eating extra Thursday morning. After each meal, I would eat one serving of hamburger bun and 1/2 serving of licorice. I reduced the amount of licorice since the hamburger buns I was eating this time had more carbs than usual buns. I did this until lunch on Saturday since a bag of buns only comes with 8 buns, so at three meals a day, I run out of buns Saturday lunch. I still had licorice though.

Race Day

Weather

The weather was very good, no precipitation. At start around 7:20am, the temp was 40F with 37F dew point. At around 1:20pm, the temp was 61F with 40F dew point.

Extra Stuff

As per usual, I was wearing my recording gear:

• GoPro Hero13 Black
• GoPro Headstrap 2.0
• GoPro Contacto
• Anker Portable Charger

My forehead didn’t hurt much wearing the GoPro this time. Since Hartford, I did try to shift where I tried to have the camera sit on my forehead so I think that helped.

Nutrition

About one hour before the race started, I ate a serving of licorice.

Carry:

• 1x Bonk Breaker Green Apple Energy Chews
• 2x Sport Beans(R) Jelly Beans Assorted Flavors
• 4x Mott’s(R) Assorted Fruit Flavored Snacks
• LMNT (~70% of a packet mixed with water in 550mL bottle)

This is my standard marathon load out. It has served me well in prior races. I eat either 1/2 a Mott’s pack, 1/3 a Sports Beans pack, or 1/4 Bonk Breaker pack every 15 minutes. I kept to the standard snack intake interval for the first 1hr and 30min but at some point the schedule slipped since when I take the electrolyte drink on the course, I use that as energy instead of my own snacks. I may have skipped too many energy intake intervals as I hit the wall after the finish line and had a lot of leftover snacks.

On the course, I skipped the first few water stations since I carried my own water and electrolyte mix. I also skipped any food stations. I did eventually stop at water stations as I ran low/out of my own.

Race

I felt fine in the first half but did note that my heart rate was above my target for a lot of it. But that was planned since I was going for broke.

Early in the race, around 3mi, I felt a stitch in my lower chest, but it went away.

It all started falling apart after the half. I felt my legs getting heavy. And a larger stitch in the chest appeared. I assume I went past my lactate threshold for too long and thus was paying the penalty. The walking started just after mile 17, and I would periodically do run/walk intervals to the end. A few times, I felt my right calf cramp like at the end of Hartford, but it would subside. At the end, it was only my heavy legs holding me back from my desired sprint finish to the end. All good data that I will use for the future.

Some other issues encountered:

• I botched a lot of cup pickups. I also had the issue of sometimes fixating on a particular person/cup even though there were other cups available down the line. Probably goes along with being physically/mentally drained.
• After getting to the finish line, taking a few pics, and leaving the area after getting the boxed snacks, I felt the wall and thought I would not be able to walk further. I decided to stop and sit on the grass. I tried to eat the food they gave. For a first at a race, I ended up barfing up what I ate. I think I ate the Chewy bar and Veggie Sticks from the box. Eventually I was able to stand up and make my way to the exit.
• One of the souvenirs that was advertised was a blanket, given at the finish. They ran out of blankets though. I noticed that with the multiple distribution points for blankets, they were ending up giving multiple out to people. Some people getting a duplicate probably doesn’t matter but with tens of thousands of people, the duplicates add up and the later finishers don’t get their hard earned prize. Fortunately, I heard the later finishers still got the cape, but from what I saw, there was only one distribution point for those so less chance of people getting multiple. And there were seemingly no toothpicks/forks or any utensils to eat the watermelon they gave out with.
  • Apparently there were more finisher blankets available and participants were able to pickup a blanket from the office or get a blanket mailed. And finisher jackets were made available again for another order batch to be delivered in early 2026. So a somewhat happy ending for the blanket and sold out jackets.