Analysis 07 of 10 Know your course

Where do hills and pace changes line up?

Choose a course to see its larger rises and falls, then compare the pacing pattern at the same distances.

Make the comparison yours

Start with an example

Hours:minutes. We compare a 15-minute band around this finish time.

Refine by age, gender or earlier performance

An earlier time selects a 15-minute band of recorded bests from earlier years.

Every course has its own shape

Choose your marathon above.

Elevation belongs to a particular course. Select a city to compare its supplied rises and falls with observed pacing.

How to read this

Positive elevation change means the section ends higher than it starts. Switch to the pacing view to compare the same sections.

Keep in mind

The supplied route may differ from older editions. Net elevation hides climbs followed by descents; it cannot give a precise hill penalty.

How we calculated this

Align the supplied unique city-level course segments with the pacing profile. Historical route validity is unknown. Net elevation change can hide both climbing and descending; bridge decks, tunnels, smoothing and route changes can affect the profile. This does not estimate a historical hill penalty or grade-adjusted effort.

Runner comparison groups contain at least 100 eligible observations. Broader comparisons are labeled; a finish can belong to a runner with several races. Elevation describes the supplied course profile.

We check the raw timings and apply reviewed source-quality rules before forming these groups. Editions with known invalid split grids, incomplete ingestion, unresolved source checks or a selected field are excluded. Missing age or recorded gender alone does not remove an otherwise eligible finish from the overall comparison.

Input data: Marathon results, weather and course data. Read the full methods in source units or browse the marathons, years and data fields.