(As of right now, the half is our most popular race and is filling up the most quickly -- get your registrations in soon to ensure you'll have a spot! Hopefully, this guide provides all of you half-marathoners a good feel for what your experience will be like, and guides you as you prepare.)
The first mile of the course is flat or slightly uphill, pavement, and through the outskirts of Big Rapids. After a mile, the road turns to gravel, the houses thin out, the forest thickens, are you start winding your way through a series of hills: a long, gradual uphill, a short downhill, another long, gradual uphill, etc.
Over the first two miles of the course, you end up with roughly a hundred and fifty feet of climb, and only thirty feet of descent. I much prefer my runs to be like this: more taxing at the beginning of the run when I'm fresh, with the downhill portions toward the end.
After two miles, you get off the gravel road and enter the two-track portion of the run. The next eight miles or so will be almost all remote two-track: you'll only see two more houses until you get back to town.
The first bit of two-track is a steep downhill, followed by a flat, winding half mile that leads you to your first turn since the very beginning of your race. Just under three miles into the run, you'll see your first aid station and make a right turn onto Beech -- there are no street signs out there, of course, but the turn will be ridiculously well marked and you'll have oodles of volunteers there to make sure everyone is following the course.
Beech will hit you with two good ascents. The first one is short, very manageable (see picture below), and less than a hundred meters long; it's followed by a short, flat stretch, and then you'll start one of the tougher hills on the course. It's steep, it's long, and it's far enough into the race that you'll definitely feel it. Together, the two Beech Hills climb another eighty feet over just a quarter mile and bring you to your highest point on the course. Your first 5k of the race will likely be quite a bit slower than your goal pace.
Beech Hill #
What goes up, however, must eventually come down. After climbing the second of the Beech Hills, you've got a half-mile stretch that's all moderate-to-steep downhills. The only hazard here is a couple of mud pits; they were frozen over today, with layers of ice over some pretty good little puddles, but we stayed aware and managed to keep our feet dry. You'll have to keep your eyes open; depending on whether it rains much before the race, the mud can be a real shoe-sucker, and should be navigated around.
Beech is 1.3 miles, all together. It dead-ends just over four miles into your race; you'll see a house on your left, and will take a left onto 11-Mile. Again, it will be very well-marked and you won't be able to take a wrong turn without copious effort.
11-Mile starts off with a long, gradual, sandy hill. Hills are always tougher to climb in the sand, so although there's not much climb to it, it can be taxing. Today, it was frozen and fun to attack. After you've climbed that little dune, you've got one of my favorite stretches of trail in all the world. The forest is thick, old, and beautiful, the two-track is well-packed dirt that feels buoyant underfoot, and the road is a long, gradual downhill. We picked up the pace coming up to the Powerlines; if you run your first 5k of the race intelligently, your second 5k will be strong and hit the midway point rolling.
Just follow the Lines
At the Powerlines, you'll see your second aid station, and you'll be just about six miles into your race. You'll take a left on the Lines -- just follow the signs for the half marathon. We hit six miles in forty-six minutes, so we were running just over 7:40 miles. This is just about exactly what we'd normally run on a long run given our fitness right now, but we were working a little harder than we normally would -- the course can be run fast, but it's definitely challenging.
For the marathoners, the Powerlines will be memorably challenging. However, for the half-marathon, the Lines are just a series of short up-and-downs -- nothing too difficult -- and they're net downhill. You'll have to keep your eye out for stray rocks to keep your ankles safe, but the only real excitement on the Powerlines comes at the end of them.
After you're on the Lines for just over a mile, you'll hit The Wall. It's a very short, very steep uphill, built to discourage motor vehicles from getting past it. The wall is the only stretch of the course where almost everyone will use their hands as well as their feet. It'll slow you down, but it's no more than ten feet tall / long, and might give your muscles a little variety. When you see The Wall, you'll know it.
You'll be just over seven miles into your run, more than half of the way home, and you'll see your third Aid Station just to your left. We hope those two Aid Stations -- just about a mile apart, and right in the middle of your race -- are much appreciated spots for fuel.
You'll continue past that Aid Station on Skiberian Road. It's a wider gravel road with a long and gradual downhill for two-thirds of a mile; it's about 20 feet of gradual descent, and our legs appreciated it. Just when you really get rolling, you'll hit what's probably the toughest hill on the course: there's a short, gradual uphill, followed almost immediately by a long, steep uphill that winds to the right. Together, they pack about a hundred feet of climb into a half-mile stretch, the the majority of that hundred at the end.
I don't want to scare those of you who aren't experienced half marathoners. A hundred-foot climb really all that much. When we ran the North Country Trail Run this summer, there were an awful lot of two- and three-hundred foot climbs. These are challenging, but they're doable -- we attacked these hills at half-marathon pace and came out the other end just fine.
There is a long, steep downhill just after your climb -- I always feel like it's the steepest hill that I can really run without having to decelerate. By the bottom of that hill, I'm always flying, and today was no exception. You pass the Mountain Bike Trailhead, which is a great spot for your Fan Club to cheer you on, and then you'll continue downward toward Hungerford Road. Over the course of that half-mile, you've dropped a hundred feet.
You've got your last really challenging climb as you get onto Hungerford Road and wind to the left. As the road switches back to two-track, there is a very short, steep climb -- just over a hundred meters long -- and then a very slight, almost unnoticed climb for the next mile. That slight whisper of a climb -- coming nine miles into your race -- can noticably slow your pace. We ran that mile in 8:15. However, at the top of your climb you'll see Turnbull Lake on your left and you'll know that you're almost at your last Aid Station -- the same one that you saw three miles into your run.
When you hit your last Aid Station, you'll have less than three miles left. From here on in, it's all familiar territory, except in reverse. You'll soon climb a steep hill that gets you off the two-track and back onto gravel roads, and then you'll charge down a series of gradual downhills followed by very short uphills that lead you back to pavement. The downhills are much more significant than the uphills -- you only have two very short and gradual ascents, and lots and lots of downhills. It felt great to open up our legs and roll down this stretch.
Just after you hit the pavement, you have a tiny little bump up, and when you crest it you can see the final curve and you know the finish is nigh. We commented on how great it would be to know, at that point, where the finish was; it should serve as great motivation for your last half mile!
Our overall pace was 7:38 for the run, so we kept things pretty even throughout. We felt like the run was just perfectly challenging: hard enough that you can brag about it to your friends, but fair enough that it could be raced quickly. Our estimate was that we'd race it about 10-12% slower than we would a flat, fast road race.
We love this course because it has a certain narrative feel to it:
- At the start, you get more and more remote -- you're venturing out into the woods.
- You climb hard for the first three miles, then roll along on some easier stretches.
- As you approach eight miles and are starting to really feel the fatigue, we give you some good hills to test your fortitude.
- Once you conquer the hills, you return to civilization with the fastest stretch of course -- either to relax and enjoy your success, or to drop the pace and finish strong.
If you have any questions about the course, feel free to let us know! Within the next couple of weeks, we'll give you a preview of the marathon and ultramarathon courses!
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