One of the things that I do before a race (frankly, I do this before I even sign up for the marathon) is revisit the course profile to visualize what the race is going to be like. There is a bit of skepticism around about the accuracy of some marathon course profiles because of the way some of them are created. For example, the Boston marathon course profile takes elevation measurements at the mile markers and extrapolates between the points...missing a significant number of little rollers at the beginning of the race.
The official St.George profile that is on their website is somewhat similar in that it doesn't show every little bump and dip. Here is the profile from the website.
Here is a modified course profile from someone who used a GPS along the course, and therefore has more data points to use. It looks steeper than it actually is, of course, because of the scale. However, when driving the course in 2005, I found this map showed all of the little hills so that there were no surprises come race morning.
Lastly, I came across a course video that someone had posted online back in 2005. They had driven the course in their vehicle and then edited/sped it up to only last 7-8 minutes. The course is slightly different than the current course because of changes made in 2006, but the first 22-23 miles are the same and give you a good idea of what you might see during the race. There is also a slide show/course tour on the St.George Marathon website with photographs from each mile.
I will review the course profile and video almost every day for the next 3 weeks before race day.
3 comments:
Thanks Sadie!
Ha! Yes, thanks! I'm sliding that button forwards and backwards on the video to replay some of those sections, very neat :)
Finished course 302...ready for my next class.
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