Why didn’t you stop by the house?

-Juan Quijano ’09

I wouldn’t necessarily believe the data from the GPS unit. I have a Forerunner 301 too and the elevation data shows changes in many instances that are not possible where I live (it’s very flat here). I suspect the problem is when it switches satellites as I notice the elevations to be most off if the signal is blocked from one or more directions.

Brad, my Polar watch showed a very similar graph. I could tell shortly after I started the race that they lied! Even the little hills at the beginning were more than I had expected. The Newton hills were killers! Congrats on getting through it! Despite the hills, I had an awesome experience and it sounds like you did as well.

Larry Nelson pointed me to your post about the negative email you received. I’m reminded of something that Bobby McGee has said to me on several occasions. Bobby was my coach for Boston – I see that he’s your coach as well (isn’t he great?). Bobby said that you don’t run anything longer than a half marathon for health or fitness. You run it for your soul. Each of my marathons has been that type of experience. Personally, I think you get double the soul benefit when you run for a charity. Maybe your reader will think that’s selfish, but as Shirley Chisholm told a friend of mine, you can’t be of service to others unless you first take care of yourself.

Best of luck on your goal to run 50 marathons.

Hills….LOL I have cracks in the side walk that are taller than those around here. Besides If you want to run a race a complain about the hills, come run Catalina with me next year. On a more serious note, My Garmin has a habit of showing different elevations on the same coarses. I run many of the same week in and week out, there is a surprising number of changes each week. some it has to do with where it pics the data pionts, unless you have it set on data every second. Just my two cents worth.