I agree with everything you said about the course, Sage, but have one (possibly pedantic, but I think meaningful) correction: CIM *is* World Athletics certified (it is measured by a World Athletics “A”-level measurer, Doug Thurston, and it’s course holds a World Athletics certificate). It isn’t record-eligible and marks posted on the course aren’t eligible to be used for qualifying *times*, but performances at CIM (after receiving an adjustment for the course’s net downhill) do count toward an athlete’s world ranking (and for US athletes, with it serving as the national championship there are some nice world rankings point bonuses available). And (although this isn’t a correction, but rather a further explanation) USATF has, of course, made the decision to allow *times* run in sanctioned races on certified courses with a net downhill just greater than Boston’s to count for Olympic Trials qualifying purposes (a decision it makes independently from World Athletics), so times at CIM do (famously!) count for OTQs.
Again, all of the above may seem pedantic, but I think it’s important that fans understand how the somewhat intricate qualifying and rankings processes work (and CIM obviously plays an important role in that for US runners), and slight mis-use of terms can contribute to large misunderstandings of that.