Anyone here have experience and any advice for training specifically for a downhill marathon? I'm winding myself up into training mode for the Peak to Creek Marathon in North Carolina in late October.
For some background, this will be my 4th marathon, and first non-Honolulu marathon. I've ran Honolulu the last 3 years, my fastest time was 3:21 2 years ago, and this year I went into it in much better shape, hoping to BQ, but after some knee injury flare ups in the last 3 weeks of training I went out in my goal pace but crashed hard and limped in at 3:29.
Anyway, I'm moving to NC for grad school, and ended up finding the Peak to Creek to register for. The complete opposite of Honolulu really- hopefully cool, small, rural, and hopefully fast. I am planning on pushing for BQ time again (I'm 26). My 91 year old grandmother lives right on the Boston course and loves watching every year, so quite I'm motivated to get myself into BQ shape in the next couple of years.
The race profile is very downhill dominant:
Either way, this should be a fun change (25,000 primarily Japanese tourists to a race capped at 300). I am also hopeful that my change in work will help my training regimen. I currently work in the mountains hiking with a heavy pack 4 days a week for long work days. It makes it really difficult to do much weekday training, and while all the hiking keeps my muscles conditioned, obviously a switch to more days of real running will help me, and hopefully wear my body down less in the process.
I'm hoping to find other races to do before and after then in the area (I'll be in Durham but of course will drive for anything good), so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be thrilled.