jake lee wrote:
.I'm thinking primarily as far as
Quoted message said:overall speed and/or hills go, more than anything else.
I'm more interested in trail races where the footing may be more of an issue than road races, but
what I do is find results of people who have run various races (like your Napa Valley and SF
Chronicle) and see how their times compare. If they don't have web pages, there may be results in
newspaper. Compare winning times or course records as a means of adjusting times. In my case, I also
look at the tail-enders. Some of the elites are likely not slowed down by assorted challenges as
much as other runners may be, but if you can find somebody in your general time range, that would be
even better. But keep in mind that Napa Valley may have been a training run for them or they were
helping a friend through or it could have been an all out effort like yours. In large marathons, I
suspect winning times or course records may be a good way of judging course difficulty. They work
reasonably well in smaller races also, but we obviously don't have the international elites up here
in trail races.
Just a suggestion, but if you're in the area, drive, bike, walk, or better yet - run - the course or
parts of it before hand. Heck, do hill repeats or at least run those hills or similar or larger
hills in your training. If you're running by pace (min/mi), then you might want to consider running
by effort and allow a slower pace in those sections (this is why I run strictly by effort). With
adequate training, and you've already shown you're willing to do it, those hills shouldn't be that
much of a deal, IMHO - unless there's a bunch of smaller hills between the topo lines or some other
idiosyncrasy of the course.
Besides here, you might also ask in your running store or some other *experienced* runners (ones
that have trained well but aren't going to be biased by only wanting to set PB's) what the course is
like - both for hills as well as aid, crowd support / control, etc, if that matters. That will give
you more relevant information than comparing it to other races. I recognize you said you asked some
local runners, but wasn't sure what level.
What matters is what's on the course on race day. A 300-ft hill with a 10% grade is a 300-ft hill
with a 10% grade, esp. on a road where mud, rocks, roots aren't an issue. Whether it's smaller or
larger, steeper or flatter than that in another race doesn't affect what you have to run up that
day. And people's perception of how big/small that hill looks that day is directly related to
their training.
Quoted message said:
Some people around here kind of cringe and raise eyebrows when talking about the SF marathon
course, saying that it's a pretty 'tough' course. But then again, all of the other big-ish road
marathon courses that I can think of around california are all quite flat (relatively) , for the
most part. (not counting the small 'big sur' marathon,..which is supposed to be one of the hillier
courses of all road marathons)
For perspective, how many times have you seen someone on r.r looking for more hills in a course? For
some reason, many people like flat. The thought of any hills seems to terrify many people - a
challenge in addition to the miles.
FWIW, up until a few months ago, I thought Boston was an *uphill* course
- based on everything I'd heard about it. I'd heard about the downhill start, but I thought it made
up for it later. Then I saw the profile, enlarged enough to see the topography. (yea, I know I'm
pretty ignorant about road races)
Quoted message said:
The mental aspect is primarily what prompts me to look into this further. If it turns out that I'm
going to enter one of the tougher/hillier courses around, I'd like to be sure to know what I'm
getting into beforehand!
Your topo maps that you've already looked at tell you that 🙂 Just add hill training and enjoy!
Good luck.
Dot
--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
