When I was searching for a spring marathon, my criteria were close to Denver and within driving distance. The Salt Lake City Marathon and the Lincoln Marathon were my top choices. I immediately ruled out the Colorado Marathon, as I am seeking a “true” course and the net elevation drop on that race makes it hard to compare to previous run marathons.

At first I was leaning towards the Salt Lake City Marathon, but I decided to do some investigating. The Lincoln Marathon is a true course, start and finish are in the same place and it’s at a lower elevation, about 1.2k feet above sea level. SLC at 4,330 feet above sea level, and the course is slightly downhill with a net elevation drop of approximately 650 feet, thus my assumption was that SLC might be the faster course even though it is run at a higher elevation.

I decided to take a look at the 2007 results:

Lincoln = 1,075 finishers with 46 runners finishing <3 hours
SLC = 1,148 finishers with 25 runners finishing <3 hours

In 2007, world wide only 1.7% of all marathon finishers ran under three hours. If you look at SLC, 2% of the finishers finished in less than three hours. However, at Lincoln 4.3% finished under three hours. I would even guess that it’s a statistically significant differance.

Both races were ran with cool temps, around 50 and at Lincoln it was even raining. The real question is do a lot of fast runners show up for the Lincoln Marathon, or is it just a fast course? I don’t have the answer, but I hope to be in that 4.2% who finish in less than three hours in May!

Now I just need to train, besides, I hear Lincoln, NE is beautiful that time of year!