Updates to the 2024 Newport Marathon & Newport Half Marathon

We have been so busy this winter season working on creating a great race season for all of our participants. Most of these updates aren’t very glamorous but we know they are the right things to do – for our participants, our environment and our community at large.

To start, if you are not local, you may not have been following the announcement of the beach structures at Easton’s Beach. This demolition is scheduled for the Spring and may be occurring during the race. However, our partners at Newport Parks and Rec, specifically the beach management staff, have been so wonderful to work with and we have altered our start and finish to accommodate this situation. We will be removing the run through the West Lot and along the board walk and the course will continue on Memorial Blvd and enter into the East Lot entrance. This will provide minimal impact on our existing course, while also removing the dreaded run past the half marathon finish for our full marathon participants. The course is still being measured and certified by our USATF certifier, so it will remain a Boston Qualifier, but the maps on our website have been updated.

Secondly, due to the growth of this year’s race, we have engaged RI DMAT – or the State’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team. They will provide field hospitals and complete medical care at very points throughout the course. This is a more comprehensive medical plan for this year’s race, and we do feel stepping up our safety and security plan, again while not glamorous and the majority of the participants will not need this additional amenity, we do feel like it is the best call for a race of this size.

Due to the record participant field, we went to order more gels for the updated needs, only to learn that Clif no longer offers gels. So rather than having multiple brands on course, we will be saving our Clif supply for races later this year and GU will be our gel on course for 2024. Sorry for this late switch.

Finally, after a learning year in 2023, we are bringing back Epic Renewal in our efforts to be a Zero-Waste event. As last year’s event was a new format for the relatively new organization, this year we have a better deployment plan to ensure we are reaching our sustainability goals. Again – sustainability is achieved with the help of all, so please be mindful of our sensitive ecological environment that we are lucky enough to run through, and please take care when disposing of any waste you have throughout your race experience. Look for Epic Renewals signs and toss your trash mindfully.

We will again be partnering with Eastern RI Conservation District as our post-race plogging team, so that we are able to leave the course better than when we found it. They are still looking for volunteers so please check our website if you are able to join them.

Of course we will still have great medals, shirts, our Beer Garden, post-race massages, and a fabulous festival after the race, and there are other small changes like your bib pick up QR code able to be added to your Apple Wallet, SMS text alerts for the race so your race info doesn’t get lost in your emails, etc etc etc. We will plan to have a “Strava Mile” at mile 24-25 so if you are Strava segment searcher, check for that! If you are not there already, join our Strava Club to learn more about the Strava Mile.

We are looking forward to a great race on April 13th in Newport. The race is currently sold out, we welcome to all those we will be seeing and please consider joining us in the future! Please follow our social media for all the updated information.

We are always looking to learn, change and improve – and we always love hearing from our participants – so if you have any thoughts, ideas and suggestions, don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know.