Your Updated San Francisco Marathon Elevation & Pacing Guide

Elevation Profile

The full elevation acquire for the SF Marathon is about 1,303 ft (about 300 ft greater than its older variations) with a corresponding lack of 1,303 ft. That is a lot hillier than the California International Marathon in Sacramento (acquire 663 ft, descent 1,003 ft) and Boston (acquire 815 ft, loss 1,275 ft), however a lot much less hilly than the Big Sur International Marathon (acquire 2,182 ft, loss 2,528 ft).

Tempo planning for a hilly course could be tough. First, you’ll want to search out your purpose tempo for a flat course, then modify your expectations and plans primarily based on the elevation profile of every mile to give you a tempo plan.

Elevation Breakdown of the SF Marathon

Sure, the SF Marathon is hilly. Nonetheless, these hills should not uniformly distributed throughout the course. The primary and final two miles are virtually completely flat. See the mile-by-mile breakdown of the marathon beneath. (Please be aware that these elevation adjustments have been measured out utilizing Gaia GPS and Strava and are unofficial. Your measurements could range barely.)

We’ve taken every mile of the race (1^st column) and listed the ft of climb (2^nd column) and the ft of descent (3^rd column). Including them collectively produces the entire acquire/loss for that mile (4^th column). As a result of climbing is tougher than descending, we’ve listed the entire climb as much as that time in ft (5^th column), and as a share of the entire acquire of the race (6^th and closing column).

(To your comfort, HERE’s a link to a Google Sheets document with the tables and calculations. You possibly can print or duplicate it to your personal account to realize enhancing entry and plug in your tempo.)

Desk A: Elevation Achieve/Loss within the SF Marathon, by Mile

Supply: Gaia GPS & Strava

A couple of factors on total race topography:

1. Whereas the primary half of the marathon has a number of greater climbs, the general elevation acquire is fairly evenly divided, with 54% or climbing within the first half.
2. There are three important climbs at miles 7, 12, and 16.
3. There are three important descents at miles 10, 14, and 21.

Planning your anticipated SF Marathon Time

Let’s begin by assuming you’ve run a flatter marathon or that you’ve a generic time purpose for a flat marathon. For this evaluation, we’re going to make use of a flat-marathon purpose time of three:36 (8 min/mile tempo). Then, we’re going to make use of John Kellogg’s tempo plan for elevation. Kellogg is a runner and coach legendary for the depth and breadth of his posting on www.letsrun.com. A group of his writing is here.

Though this can differ for each runner primarily based on their pure skills and state of coaching, John estimates 10 ft of elevation acquire will add 1.74 seconds to a operating time whatever the distance coated.  At 1,303 ft of acquire occasions 1.74 seconds added for every 10 ft of acquire, we get a complete addition to your tempo of 227 seconds, or 3 minutes and 47 seconds. Subsequently, if I can run a 3:36 marathon with no elevation change, I can anticipate to complete the SFM in about 3:39:47.

Planning your Tempo Across the SF Marathon’s Hills

To find out a tempo over every of those mile segments, we’re going to make use of some guidelines of thumb developed by Dr. Mervyn Davies, referenced in Tim Noakes’ e book “Lore of Operating,” and plugged into the earlier desk for a tough tempo estimate.  We’re going to make use of six guidelines of thumb for calculating the tempo you want for every mile:

Let’s apply these guidelines on a mile by mile foundation utilizing the information from above. Within the desk beneath, we’ve taken every mile of the marathon and used the ascent/descent to calculate a complete acquire/loss grade for that mile. We’ve then taken that grade and multiplied it by the adjusters above. This provides us an adjusted tempo for every mile. In fact, these estimates are broad. 

Desk B: SF Marathon Grade % and Ascent/Descent Tempo Adjusters by Mile

Supply: Collected knowledge & editor’s calculations

The desk above offers us a marathon adjusted tempo of three:39:22. That’s 3 minutes and 22 seconds above our “flat” purpose of three:36:00. This doesn’t precisely correspond with our earlier estimated time of three:39:47 above, primarily as a result of we rounded up and down and seemed on the elevation mile per mile slightly than really trying on the grade of the marathon foot by foot (however it’s shut).

Now, let’s have a look at a number of pattern paces with the adjusted mile-by-mile pacing.

Desk C: Pattern Paces with Adjustment, by Mile

Supply: Collected knowledge and editor’s calculations

Your Takeaways

1. Sure, the SF Marathon is hilly—however no, the hills gained’t have a dramatic impact in your total efficiency.
2. Not factoring hills into your pacing and popping out the gate too robust, nonetheless, can have an incredible impact in your efficiency! Essentially the most dramatic inclines are within the first half of the race. That’s the place many runners are experiencing adrenaline surges and are operating too quick. Watch your tempo from the get-go! This could result in extreme bonks within the second half of the race.
3. When coaching, you’ll want to prepare at a marathon tempo a number of seconds beneath what you’d prepare on a flat course. It will compensate for the impact elevation could have in your whole efficiency.

Good luck on the market!