Part of a weekend-long series of races, the Frederick Running Festival race features a fast course with gently rolling hills that winds through the streets of this city in west-central Maryland that lies about an hour’s drive north of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area.
Sunday’s half marathon is limited to 5,000 runners, and the out-and-back course for the race starts and finishes at the Frederick Fairgrounds. (The race also hosts a 5K and a series of fun runs and challenges on Saturday, May 2.)
From the starting line at the fairgrounds, runners follow a roughly clockwise route along the loop course for the half marathon, running along East Patrick Street and turning first on East Street, which is followed by turns on Monocacy Boulevard, Market Street and 6th Street, followed by a turn south onto Bentz Street, which brings runners south toward Baker Park.
Runners follow the Carroll Parkway along the southern edge of the park, past Frederick High School into Fairfield and the Waterford Park area.
The route takes a brief detour through the park across West College Terrace and then back onto Carroll Parkway before turning onto Kline Boulevard and then Fairview Avenue, which runners follow all the way around to the northern side of Baker Park, and then onto 2nd Street for the route that leads back into neighborhoods and city blocks.
Runners follow the next several turns around to the northern end of Baker Park and through a combination of residential streets and stretches through more commercial districts, as the course takes them past the Frederick Memorial Hospital and through Staley Park.
The course brings runners back onto Market Street for a stretch into the tree-lined residential neighborhoods of Fredericktowne Village, the neighborhood where they’ll run through a pair of parks before heading back onto East Street.
Next, the course brings runners south along East Street all the way to Third Street Park, where they turn left and head back toward the finish line at the Frederick Fairgrounds.
