the Way of the Turtle

Adirondack Marathon Course Preview
Saturday, August 4, 2007

Adirondack Marathon course map
elevation profile

Leaving the bike at home was definitely a good move - no energy to ride between the race and 3 hours of sleep last night!

Still, since I was only half an hour from Schroon Lake, I decided to drive the Adirondack Marathon course to see what I'd be facing come September 16.

One part I already knew, from driving to Schroon Lake several years ago (the first time I signed up to run the race!) The last 7 miles or so are mostly a fairly gradual uphill... that's not going to be much fun, during the latter part of running 26.2 miles, but at least it's gradual.

Other than the 9 miles along Route 9, which is a busy road, the rest is fairly nice woods and countryside, with the stretch from mile 2-ish to the halfway point being particularly "rural". But holy crap, there are some nasty hills on that stretch! The first half of this thing is going to be tough!

Looks like I'm in for a long day, mid-September... and I better get my butt in gear and work on running hills over the next six weeks! (As well as building distance over the next 2-3... driving the route also made very clear just how far it's going to be to run. Yikes!)

JMH