The Mystery of Headlands Ninety(?)

[tundradesert]

I'm with Bob. The climb back up is major. The SCA/Coastal junction is at about 660' and you climb as high as about 880', just before SCA/Alta/Rodeo Valley junction. For comparison, the top of Wolf Ridge (more accurately, the highest you go on Wolf Ridge, you don't go all the way to Hill 88) is at about 860', so the SCA climb is every bit as major as Wolf, just spread out over a longer distance. (Sorry about the "abouts", as I said I can get very good barometric data but it'd involve some nontrivial averaging/qualifying work.)

Vermont was way short until about 2004, when they did a major revision of the course. Even after that, they kept adding a mile or two just about every year. The last addition I know of was in 2007 and was about two miles. Vermont's policy is not to publish course maps, ostensibly so that people wouldn't be tempted to pre-run and thus run into problems with the landowners. They removed all maps, even crude ones, from their website between 2007 and 2010, so you can't verify their aid station measurements even if you wanted to.

My friend ran Vermont in the late 1990s in about 17 hours and he was well over 50 years young and far from the lead that year. The current "course record" is not much faster than that (and was set on a course shorter than the 2007 course).

[guest1]

Yeah, going to the waterfront for VP makes the elevation comparable to the actual course. Then, I don't see how they'll get 8 miles to Rodeo Beach - like you said. I suppose they can do a loop around the lagoon for an extra 1+ miles. Can't wait to hear how everything works out.

Why did you have to bring up Vermont?!! I ran it in the 90's in 22h. You ruined my weekend, tundradesert. d**n

[chriso]

Pretty lousy thing to post the day before the race.

[tundradesert]

Hm... I guess I (or someone else) could have brought it up after the race, when absolutely nothing could be done about it...

My guess is that the low portion of Bobcat somehow figured in the plans and could not be permitted, perhaps because NPS is working on it. That would almost explain the initial 7.0 miles on the pink away. Again, speculation...

[adunni66]

The Vista Point aid station was not in the parking lot but much farther down by a pier.

[mweston]

My GPS numbers were roughly 5.7 from TV to GG and 6.3 from GG to RB, for a total of about 24.1 per loop. But I'm definitely not complaining.

[DF]

My garmin had 25.02 on the first loop. I took it off at that point.

[mweston]

Anyone else with numbers?

[ultradave]

i had 2 garmin 305 watches that i used at the event. i used one on lap 1 then charged it in my car for lap 3, and used the other on lap 2 and charged it for lap 4. i got different numbers for every lap. 24.2, 25.1, 24.8, 25.23

i've found that gps isn't 100% accurate. gps can be up to 20 feet off at any given time. anytime you turn a corner, or do switch backs it can be very off.

when i go on my long runs on sundays with my friends we all start our garmins at the same time and when our run is over we all have different numbers, sometimes up to .5 or .75 miles off, and we run in a tight pack.

gps is good to have, but it's not always exact.

[mweston]

Oh, I know it's not exact. But if you have enough samples to average, I would expect it to be pretty close, which is why I asked if anyone else had numbers. Your total was about 99.3 vs. DF's 100.1 vs. my 96.5 (measured with two Garmin 310's -- no charging needed).

You did consistently get longer measurements on the counter-clockwise loops, for whatever that's worth.