I ran the Oakland 1/2 Marathon yesterday, the inaugural Oakland running festival which had other running events like a relay, 5k, and of course the full marathon.
I had a lot of fun, the course is super fast and flat, folks were great/happy/excited, the running shirt was nice. The support was awesome, no shortage of volunteers and spectators. I was surprised by the number of people that were out and about cheering (moreso than the San Francisco marathon).
Ran into a few folks Derrick and Dr. Bean from IronTeam. Ben was at the finish line volunteering.
More thoughts from other folks
The other day, I encountered eight (eight!) people who had come to town just for the marathon. All of them made a point of saying how surprised they were to discover what a beautiful city Oakland is. It was totally heartwarming.