I scream, you scream, we all scream… about inaccurate mile marker placements! Last Saturday I ran The Scream half marathon which is a downhill race which features just over 2300′ of descent. 

I knew going into the this that it was going to be a rough race, but there was no elevation map to show exactly what I was getting into. While the majority of the race is downhill there are some fairly significant hills to deal with which I definitely wasn’t expecting! The first two miles were on a paved road and then we headed onto the fire road which would be the rest of our race course. By around mile 4, I noticed that my Garmin was significantly off compared to the mile markers (by around .4 or .5 miles). Since I was consistently off by that far, I decided I should stick with the course mile markers – we were in the woods and the road had a lot of switchbacks, so I assumed the Garmin just missed some mileage somewhere (see my notes about the Pittsburgh Marathon where it clocked me at 26.75 miles) – so, on I went comparing my clock time to the course mile markers.

• Mile 1 – 9:10, starting elevation 3808′
• Mile 2 – 9:17, -3′
• Mile 3 – 9:06, -156′
• Mile 4 – 8:43, -210′
• Mile 5 – 9:35, -354′
• Mile 6 – 9:08, -177′
• Mile 7 – 10:21, -96′
• Mile 8 – 8:47, – 395′
• Mile 9 – 10:43, -79′
• Mile 10 – 9:13, -421′
• Mile 11 – 9:40, -288′
• Mile 12 – 10:33, -80′
• Mile 13 – 8:40, -42′ ending elevation: 2301′

I started to struggle a little bit between miles 8-10 because of how steep the descent was. Since we were on a gravel / dirt road, it was only flat in the middle and I know I spent time in the first half of the race running on the incline, so my IT band started to act up a bit by mile 10. By mile 12, I knew I had to get rid of my walk breaks or I wouldn’t be able to finish the race running – it was getting harder and harder to start back up again after my walk breaks without a lot of pain in my knee, so I decided that for the last mile I would just keep running, even if I had to go a little slower. At the mile 12 marker, I was 1:20 ahead of my pace chart, so that gave me almost 10:30 minutes to do 1.1 miles which I figured was very achievable, even if I was slowing down a bit. Instead, as I was coming closer and closer to the 2-hour mark, I didn’t see any sign of the finish – instead, I saw another incline. I kept running and running and running, getting more and more deflated by the fact that not only was I running longer than the 1 mile that I was supposed to have to go, but I was also going to miss the 2 hour mark. Finally, I came around a corner and saw the buses and the 13 mile marker followed quickly by the finish line. 

Pros

• Downhill running means if you’re in half marathon shape, you’ll pretty easily PR. 
• The middle of the mountains in July = good running weather. Even with the rain we had, once we got into the woods, we were sheltered from most of it so it was pleasant running weather.
• Aid stations were spaced out well – one every 2 miles. The stops included water and Gatorade most of the time as well as GU and pretzels at a couple of them. 
• Small runner pool of only 350 people, so there’s not a huge crowd to deal with.
• Free lunch offered at the end of the race (at the area where everyone parked their cars).

Cons

Have you ever run a downhill half marathon? If you’re Garmin starts showing way off from the course mile markers, which do you rely on?