The hills of Baltimore

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2016

I am running the Baltimore Marathon in the morning. My Annapolis running buddies have been warning me that the course is hilly.

Coming from flat-land Illinois and running the bulk of my marathons on flat courses, I respect their warning. It's good that my training this time around has included running more hills than I typically would run in the Chicago area.

But just how hilly is the Baltimore Marathon course?

The iconic course I use to judge whether a marathon is hilly is the famed Boston Marathon course that I have run seven times. Indeed, the Baltimore marathon course description tags the hills in the back half of the course as similar to those on the Boston Marathon course. Let's do a comparison.

Let's call a "real" hill anything over 50 feet of uphill gain. By that standard, it appears from the Baltimore course profile that the race only has two climbs of any significance:

200 feet over three miles (an average of 67 feet a mile) from the start.

240 feet over five miles (an average of 48 feet per mile) starting at mile 14.

Looking at the Boston course profile, the race appears to have six 50-foot-or-higher hills:

60 feet over two miles (an average of 30 feet per mile) in miles 10 and 11.

75 feet over a mile and a half (an average of 50 feet per mile) from mile 13.5 to 15.

80 feet over one mile in mile 16. (This is the first of the so-called "Newton Hills.")

70 feet over half a mile (which would convert to an average of 140 feet of gain if extended over a mile), from mile 17 to 17.5.

60 feet over half a mile (which converts to an average of 120 feet over a mile), from mile 19 to 19.5.

100 feet over half a mile (which converts to an average of 200 feet over a mile) from mile 20.5 to 21. (This is "Heartbreak Hill.")

All of the above calculations are just eyeball approximations. But it's very clear that Baltimore's two hills are long but not nearly as steep as the four Newton Hills.

Maybe even more than the steepness of its uphills, the greatest challenge of running the Boston course are its downhills. Boston is a net downhill course, running from inland to sea level, with an elevation loss of about 300 feet. Running so many miles downhill is a quad killer.

Baltimore starts and end near the Inner Harbor, so is is nearly net flat.

The total altitude gain and loss on each course tells the real story. Baltimore's course has 662 feet of uphill running and 666 feet of downhill running. Boston's course has 1660 feet of uphill running and 1958 feet of downhill running.

With no disrespect for the Baltimore Marathon's course, the Boston Marathon course is hillier and much, much harder.