Friday, January 9, 2009

Austin Marathon last 2.2 miles

The Austin Marathon route is finally approved and official.
As i mentioned, last week we ran the first 14 or so miles, and I commented on the changes that had been made.
As they added distance on the front end, I wondered where they changes cut distance on the back end.
I figured that they surely had removed that mentally demoralizing left hand turn up Avenue H at mile 22, but that was still there.
The change happens at Mile 6 where we don't run a few blocks around downtown, and instead just head west on Cesar Chavez from South First Bridge.

Another not so exciting change is at mile 24. Usually, you only have one more hill to deal with at mile 25.5, but now after flying down Duval and San Jacinto by Jo Coffee, you don't head straight (flat) through campus and UT stadium. Instead, you now take a hard right on Dean Keaton and climb up that nasty hill and run over to Guadalupe. From there you run south downhill, then face yet another little painful dip up 15th, and then head down to San Jacinto, for a right turn so you can face that last hill so many people hated last year.
So there you have it, instead of one last hill at 25.75, the course adds one nasty climb at 24, another little up-dip at mile 25, then another at 25.75.
(I wonder how many race reports I'll read where people fell apart in these hills)

Race Elevation

Course Map


Dean Keaton Hill Mile 24


Guadalupe to 15th hill Mile 25


San Jacinto Hill Mile 25.8

9 comments:

Slingshot said...

Are they purposely trying to make this course suck or what? Might as well just make it a net elevation gaining point to point race from downtown to the arboretum, with a detour west up Mt. Bonnell & Ladera Norte.

brownie said...

Can't wait! I actually need this to qualify for Pikes Peak.

kirsten said...

You know I'm just sad. Austin should be a great city for a marathon and now it has a marathon that just plain sucks. Oh well, it will make for an exciting 26.2 mile long run! I think Slingshot might be on to something...if it's gonna suck, why not make it really, really bad!

Anonymous said...

Uh Oh - better step up the hill workouts!

Anonymous said...

Maybe it needs a new marketing campaign.

"The toughest marathon in Texas."

"We don't like to close our streets for you so suck it up and run the hills."

"PRs are over rated."

"Just one more hill, we promise."

Tom Grant said...

The tough claim is already taken, by Miracle-Match Marathon in Waco. Come on gang, this is Texas, how bad can it be?


Tom

Shorey said...

OMG that hill on Dean Keaton SUCKS. That was in the Nike 10K and it was awful. At least it won't be 100 degrees.

brownie said...

I'm with Tom. The rest of yunz need to drink for whining!

Shorey said...

ok, I ran the last 8 miles this weekend & the Dean Keaton & San Jacinto are the worst (not counting the Exposition area hills). The good news is the Dean Keaton hill comes after some good downhill miles on Duval.

The MLK to San Jacinto isn't bad at all. It's steep but it's short. In fact, it's not as bad as the hill when you turn off Lake Austin Blvd to get on Enfield.