What are some Hard Marathons to run? (Read 3850 times)

Yeah, you may have read more into that than I intended. Certainly given his experience the day before, he was rightly upset. But I don't think he was directed off course so much as went off course and then chose not to finish the competition.

I also noticed in that Maniac discussion a similar experience bias, where the hardest marathons could only come from among those some of the posters had run. What is on your ranked list?

I also noticed in that Maniac discussion a similar experience bias, where the hardest marathons could only come from among those some of the posters had run. What is on your ranked list?

I haven't done enough trail (and probably won't) to feel comfortable ranking those. I will say that it is unlikely to find a harder 26.2(ish) race than Pikes Peak and Leadville. Mid-Mountain was hard for me. Kilauea is also spectacularly challenging, but they changed the course this year (something about the volcano erupting, heh) and this year's course was a bit easier. Road marathons... as of this moment, not too different from what I put on page 1: 1. Crater Lake 2. Estes Park (a slight gap) Grandfather Mountain (a bigger gap) Heart of America (gap) Big Sur (gap) Mt Desert Island (people keep trying to compare this to Big Sur. NO. Just, no. Since I haven't put 10 out there, I suppose that races like Hatfield-McCoy and Pocatello might start showing up... but I am fully confident that there are harder races. Oh yeah, back to the whole "hard" concept. One way to measure "hard" is based on finish time. The delta between my best times on the really hard courses and an average race day is about 30 minutes. But here's the thing... I felt fine enough after Crater Lake to run another race the next day. And I was fine after Estes Park. This is because I can handle going up. Another way to measure "hard" is based on how I feel afterwards and if I need to take time off. This is where the really hot-n-humid races and the monster downhills start becoming issues. My time may have been in my normal range, but if I feel like crap for days afterwards, well, that race was HARD.

I don't know if hard can be measured by how you feel the next day (or, more precisely, two days later) since rolling courses tend to spread out the beating better than flat courses even though a rolling course may be harder. Chicago or Louisville, for example, are pancake flat and can really tear you up, but they are considered easy.

Subjective, different for different people. I have no physical issues after the flat ones. I just find myself bored out of my skull. But flat's no problem. DOWNHILL is another story. I think that if something makes me feel poorly for awhile, I'm allowed to call it "hard". If something takes me longer than it normally does, that can also be "hard". Different kind of hard.

Chicago or Louisville, for example, are pancake flat and can really tear you up, but they are considered easy.

Define, "tear you up" on one of these flat courses.

That don't make no sense!! To me it seems flat would equate to using all the leg muscles evenly, and not overloading particular ones required to climb and descend.

I was looking at that graph of St George and my quads cramped up.

Yeah, hills are nice, to a point. I'd say that courses like Chickamauga, Tupelo, CMM, and the like, with some hills but not too much, are easier on the legs than really flat ones like Mardi Gras, Dubai, Jacksonville, etc. There's a point where the hills get to be too much. Heat/humidity can vary year-to-year so you can't really judge a course on that, except locations where it's almost always warm and humid (H&M, Honolulu, Mumbai, in that order).