Marathon elevations (Read 798 times)

Discussion here: http://forums.runnersworld.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/960108738/m/1181002474

Actually a good discussion, although your friend is obviously and painfully wrong. His charts would be useless for actually training for most marathons. The Monkey chart made me laugh out loud. I actually used your chart for the CMM to prepare this year. I spent hours staring at that thing, memorizing it, and picked a very specific race strategy based on exactly where those hills were, then planned specific paces on each section, especially during the first part of the race. If you check my splits at 8-11, that was planned because of your chart. I held back until then, then opened up hard. And it worked. I plan to do the same with every goal marathon - and bug you about it if there isn't a chart. It would be impossible with that guy's charts. Period.

Ft. Collins? For real?

Really? His elevation profile for Boston seems to omit Heartbreak Hill. Oh no wait. If you squint, you can see it. Is Heartbreak Hill overrated? Is your experience that it really amounts to the barely-a-bump, as shown on his profile? Or did you actually have to work as you ran over it?

If you view it in original it's close to reality. Heartbreak is NOT steep. On its own it wouldn't be a notable hill. I've run it plenty of times in training and you really don't feel it that much. The problem with Heartbreak is that it's at mile 21 of a marathon...a marathon in which you spent the first 4+ miles hurtling down hill with thousands of yahoos careening by you making it feel like you were going slowly when in reality you were going too fast, as well as the steep little dowhill into Lower Falls just befor mile 16. That plus the first three Newton Hills soften you up. So Heartbreak would not be Heartbreak without a lot of context. And in reality it does not look like barely a bump unless you put it up against one of your charts that make every hill look like Mt. Everest. Look again. It shows that you run up hill for 3/4 of a mile and gain nearly 100 feet. Which is what you do. At no point during the Boston Marathon do you jump of any cliffs or need a parachute or repelling gear, as your charts would indicate. His Big Sur chart to me looks very accurate. And his Bay State chart actually makes it look like there are more hills (or bumps) than there are--to me Bay State is a pancake. Those are the only three on his list that I've run.

Elevations charts can be useful for knowing when in a marathon certain hills will come, and how long they are, etc. You can't spend too much time looking at them or expect to learn too much from them until you run the race. ... I was just saying that elevation graphs are not like reality.

Exactly my point - and exactly why Trent's charts approach reality while the other ones are useless. Sure, some of the hills in Trent's are cartoonishly exaggerated, I guess - but that serves the training purpose of pointing out what's out there. I'll leave Boston to you, but I know both the CMM course and the Monkey course very well. If you look at Trent's map of the Monkey, it will give you some idea of what's coming; the other chart is just laughable. It looks like gently rolling hills, and gives no idea of how steep or dramatic that climb at mile 19 is. But the CMM is a better example because it isn't so dramatic. There are key points in that race that you have to prepare for. Everyone is aware of the two big hills at 17ish and 19ish, which are shown perfectly on Trent's map. They again appear no more significant than any other hill on the other chart. In fact, his chart seems to suggest that the rise at mile 23 is equivalent - which is another laugh-out-loud suggestion. But what interested me was that downhill from 8-11. I think its the key to the whole race - and on the other chart, there's no indication of how significant it is compared to rest of course. I don't get your point here. How can you prepare for hills when the hills don't even show? And how is that more "realistic?" The charts are supposed to be helpful for training. Trent's are. The others aren't.

I think part of the problem is that these must have some Y scale exaggeration. To me, the goal of these profiles is not to try somehow to emulate the real road grade, but rather to show where the hills are, how high they go and how fast they climb. To do any of this, the hills must be easily visible, which requires more that the 15 pixes per 100 foot climb Maclin's charts give. At least IMO.

Exactly the point. Your charts do their job. They let you know what's coming. Mikey notes above a steep downhill in the first 4 miles of Boston. On the other charts, it doesn't look any different than any other slope. And Heartbreak Hill is pretty much not there. Just looking at those, I'd wonder what he was talking about. On your charts, both spots are abundantly clear. ------------------------- Yes for real on Ft. Collins. Might be doing it next year. If the elevation isn't a killer, it looks like a great PR course. So now answer my questions, por favor. Carry on the hill debate without me. I'm going running.

I guess on my charts, the elevations at Boston 5-15 don't seem that impressive to me compared with 0-4 and 22. Also, the scale used in my charts mimics those used on RunningAHEAD and MotionBased, so I figured it was more standard.

Yes, but it is also useful to know where the hills are. If I blow my run because I didn't leave anything for the monster at 19...well, that is just painful. The other thing that bugs me is this: to put these on the computer, the X axis is clearly reduced from 26.2 miles long, herre to only about a foot. But why even that wide? If is is already being squashed to be appropriate to fit on a computer screen, why not squish it enough so that I don't need to scroll to the right? What is so magic about the 6.6 ratio? If I cannot eyeball the entire course at once then I cannot grasp its difficulty. And by stretching the X axis enough that it goes off the screen, again, you flatten away some of the hills to where they are less perceptable.

I am at work right now...cannot get your Fort Collins. One day, if you are good.