Is there a marathon difficulty list available

maynard503 · **Joined:** Thu Jul 27, 2006 12:41 am **Posts:** 3

I recently ran the San Francisco marathon attempting to qualify for Boston... I was 9 minutes short. After finding out that the course record of 2:29 was made on the same day I realized that this was probably not a good marathon for my attempt. (Many marathon course records are around the 2:15 mark.)
Does anyone know of a list out there that shows degree of difficulty for marathons? My next attempt will probably be either Portland or Victoria in Oct.

Thank you, Mike

formationflier · **Posted:** Sun Aug 06, 2006 10:12 pm

There's not a difficulty list that I know of, but the Boston Marathon website has a list of common qualifier marathons and you can also look at the comments at marathonguide.com. Some relatively easy ones are: Chicago, Shamrock (VA Beach), Grandma's (Duluth, MN - although this year it was over 80 deg), B&A Trail marathon (MD), Northern Central Trail Marathon (MD), Steamtown (PA), Philadelphia, and Tucson.

chambermark · **Joined:** Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:53 am **Posts:** 2

I have been scouring the same thing.......but I live on East Coast. I signed up for the Bay State Marathon (Lowell Mass in Oct). It is on of the flattest courses on the east. I was originally going to run Hartford, CT (bigger race but hillier) and if I didn't qualify for Boston was planning on running Houston in Jan (I'm told it is super flat). Turns out I travel too much for work to have to fly to run a marathon.....so I changed tack and signed up for Bay State.

FilmMiker · **Joined:** Thu Aug 31, 2006 7:55 pm **Posts:** 1

Havent got the list but heard Las Vegas was fast since it went downhill
and
pike's Peak, colorado was very tough as it was 13.1 vertical and down again
so it looks like the elevation is the difficulty factor, most marathons will give that info so interpolate it. Cheers. FilmMiker

formationflier · **Posted:** Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:09 am

Oh yeah, hard ones are easy to come up with! Pike's Peak took me just over twice as long as most of my marathon times. Other really nasty ones are silverton and leadville (both of which, just like Pike's Peak have many altitude issues!)

hawkpete · **Joined:** Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:33 pm **Posts:** 1

You might want to try the Death Valley Marathon - it is relatively flat, in December it isn't supposed to be too warm, and it is all below sea level! I don't know the course records, but you can check it out on at http://www.envirosports.com

Good luck! Hope to see you in Boston, but I have to qualify too!

Jill

Is there a marathon difficulty list available

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