National Marathon DC Results?

"Google it for me, bitch. I'm not going to waste my time."

Is that all you can come back with?

You sure wasted your time assuming something about his basketball team didn't you. You got owned.

F*** you, too!

Geez, what are you little kids so damn mad about? What could possibly have happened in your 16 years of existence to make you so angry at the world?

"Jeanette Seckinger of Massachusetts won the women’s full marathon at a time of 2:48:41."

Sweet, way to go Seckinger! GVSU Lakers represent.

People went there to run the Half, got PR'S and said: It was hilly.

Where are the hills????

http://www.marathonguide.com/coursemaps/elevationchart.cfm?MIDD=2453090321

Mile 18?????

Lots of downhills before that.

That looks like the old course. They've reversed the halves of the marathon, so now the first half is the hilly one and the second half is pretty flat. Climbs from sea level to about 200' mostly between mile 5 and mile 7. Not brutal, but not flat and fast.

In addition to reversing the loops, other course details have changed. The marathonguide information is useless.

Ok so if the course is the other way.

The hill will be at mile 2 or 3, no mile 5 or 7????????

Stan Watson wrote:

The marathonguide information is useless.

What else is new?

This is very easy, men's winning time slower than the women's WR (or even AR!) means it's a crap race.

the431miler wrote:

Google it for me, bitch. I'm not going to waste my time.

A buddy of mine ran and hasn't gotten a PR in 3 years until this half. If you are using this as a barometer for Boston double your half time and tack on 15 minutes, at least. I guess it's a good confidence builder though...

"People went there to run the Half, got PR'S and said: It was hilly.

"Where are the hills????"

It wasn't a flat course, but the hills are optimally placed, I think. You climb from about 4.5 miles to the 7 mile marker, meaning that you've had enough time to establish your pace before you hit the hills, but are still pretty fresh. The climb isn't horrible, but it's not insignificant.

After the hills, you have a nice downhill straight stretch as a reward, where you can make up a lot of time. Then it's more or less flat, with a slight climb after mile 11 (that seems significant, since it's so late in the half), and another right before the finish.

Overall, it's a decently fast course. It's not flat and fast like Cherry Blossom or the Army 10 Miles, but it's not slow either.

PR fer sure wrote:

A buddy of mine ran and hasn't gotten a PR in 3 years until this half. If you are using this as a barometer for Boston double your half time and tack on 15 minutes, at least. I guess it's a good confidence builder though...

You scared me for a second - i ran pretty well there too. I used the USATF running route tool to make sure - the course is 13.1

that's seems to be a better assessment. Based on the elevation map (thanks Stan) it's not flat but I can see how one can steam into a fast finish. Darkwave, would you recommend? you seem to know the DC races, how about marine corp. marathon?

I'd definitely recommend the National Half. I had some issues with the bag check (as noted above), but overall the race left me with a good impression. Bib pick up went quickly, race started on time, course was accurate length and fun. The crowd support, expo, and finish festival were all a bit lacking, but I really don't care about those. And the qualifying requirements, though extremely soft, weed out the first-timers and make things go very smoothly. I had no traffic troubles after the first 400M, and I started about 40 seconds behind the elites.

As for Marine Corps, I guess it depends on what you want out of it. [dislosure: I've only run the associated 10K, not the marathon, but am familiar with the course and know many people who have run it] It's not a super fast course, and there's often major crowding problems even if you're near the front (I believe they don't enforce corrals, and there's tons of overoptimistic first timers).

-If you are big into the crowd support/marathon as an event /fancy medal thing, then it's for you (and it is very well run).

-If you want to get a good placing at a well-known marathon, then it may also be a good bet -- the field is very big, but tends to be somewhat low on depth of runners (as compared to NY, Chicago, etc), since it doesn't offer money.

-If you just want to see what you can do for 26.2 miles, I'd look elsewhere (including the National Marathon).