They have a high percentage of runners who qualify for Boston at the Mountains to Beach Marathon.
I know it is a fast course but how much faster than a flat course.
I would guess the gradual downhill aids about 2%.
So if someone could run 3 hours on a flat course they could run around 2:56 on this course.
What do you think?
Most of the people I know who have run these downhill courses don't run as well as they think they will. I believe it's because they don't train properly for the downhill section.
As an example one of my runners wanted to run the El Paso marathon a couple years ago. She had run 2:53:xx at Boston several months previously and only wanted to run EP because it was her hometown race. We did some down hill training but not a lot. She ran 2:55:xx at El Paso...but then ran 2:43:xx at Grandmas the following June and then 2:42 at CIM. (2:44:xx at the trials)
She would tell you that for her the big downhill courses aren't all that fast!
M2 Beach is only about 750 feet net downhill. It starts around at about 750 feet. The first couple miles are uphill and you go up to about 930 feet and end at sea level.
It is a gradual downhill course. I don't really understand how it is only 750 feet downhill since it seems downhill the entire way from 3 to 23 with one hill.
It is not one of those 4000 feet downhill Revel courses that I would agree would end up not being as fast as some may think because quads can only take so much pounding. If you are really light and small those Revel courses might be good for fast times.
El Paso looks like it has a good uphill past 21 miles in. I could see that slowing down a lot of runners. That course looks like it rolls mostly and has longer downhill sections. It doesn't look that fast of a downhill course.
I think something like the M2 Beach course is about as fast a course as you can find.