Marathons.....Cork v Dublin

One of the features of the Dublin Marathon that struck me was the amount of hills in it. Now, there really wasn't anything bad about the hills on the course. After all, it would be almost impossible to have a Dublin Marathon without passing through the Phoenix Park and that was without doubt, the nicest part of the course. But before I ran the Dublin Marathon, people were saying that Cork was worse, that it was hillier. That the hill on the Model Farm Road was a killer.

So, lets dispell the myth...

Both the Cork and Dublin Marathons start nearly at sea level so keep that that in mind when you are looking at the graph above.

Dublin...there are 2 sections around 6 miles in the Phoenix Park and 15/16 miles near Terenure where the course is around 50 metres above sea level.

Cork...the highest section of the course is only 30 metres above sea level. Near Mahon, the maximum elevation is only 20 metres and even the lowest point of the Jack Lynch tunnel is only a maximum of 15 metres below sea level.

Conclusion........You just have to look at the graph. It's pretty obvious that in fact, the Cork Marathon is actually flatter than the Dublin Marathon. It's just that the hilly sections appear in the 2nd half of the race and that is what people remember when they were getting tired.

Comments...

"Hello, Very interesting analysis of Cork v Dublin. Now how about the lenght of each! I ran Dublin with a forerunner and clocked 26.6 miles. Did anybody else find something similar? I know I didn't cut every coner but still .4 of a mile seems a lot......Billo"

"Not many people seem to know this but the Dublin course was actually short last year - it was officialy re-measured and as a result Thomas Abdu of GB was not allowed to run in the Olympics because his time of 2-10 could not be ratified. HughJones the International Measurement Administrator was sent to measure the Dublin course this July so it is certain to be accurate now as he had previously measured the Olympic Marathon route in Beijing. Interestingly the Dublin crowd kept very quiet about their course being short and I only heard of it over in England. At least Cork runners can be proud of the fact that all the courses they run on are completely accurate thanks to the sterling work done by Cork BHAA and John Walshe in particular........Anonymous"

"I did some checking on what was said in the anonymous comment above....about Thomas Abyu, if the course was short and so on. From what I found out, the only reason Thomas Abyu's time from 2007 was not accepted for the Olympics was because the course hadn't been measured by an AIMS official, that's why they brought in Hugh Jones this year. There was no question about whether the course was actually too short prior to this.

Billo....about whether the course was 26.6 miles....every course that has been accurately measured is slightly longer than it should be. A course can be too long but it can't be too short. If you read the comments in this old post about the 2008 Eagle 5 Mile race, you can get more info on it.

As good as GPS is, it has it's limitations. As a hillwalker, I often use a GPS unit and the accuracy when you have a limited view of the sky....i.e. city streets....is about10 to 20 metres. Just because your Garmin GPS watch beeps and says that you are at 15 miles, it doesn't actually mean that you are at 15 miles!! You have to appreciate that the current GPS system has it's limitations. The GPS watches are fine for training or for giving a reasonable indication of pace. They are not good enough for accurate measurement.

Add up all the sections of road where you went wide, the limited accuracy of the watch and the fact that the course will be slightly long and maybe 26.6 doesn't sound so wild after all........John Desmond"

"Same here, I used a Garmin 305 forerunner in Dublin and it measured 42.82K!! It's was generally spot on with other races I did.......Rex"