Courses
The Missoula Marathon and Half Marathon courses are flat and USTAF certified. The Missoula Marathon is a Boston Qualifier!
The marathon course does have one significant hill at about the halfway point. You can see it in the elevation map below. See it? Flat.... one hill. It's a real hill but not devastating. A lot of runners have qualified for Boston on this course and we have a good number of sub-three hour runners. Our current Record Holder is Kiefer Hahn, at 2:33:17. I say "current" because he'll probably train hard and break his own record soon. We were really honored that Annie Thiessen, Marathon Maniac from Tacoma, came over and set the course record for women last year, with a 2:57:44.
The Missoula Half Marathon course is just plain fast. Ask Casey Jermyn, our Half Marathon Record Holder -- he finished it in 1:09:52. We might have to wait a while before someone beats that. One of our Missoula Mountain West Track Club runners set the Women's Half Marathon course record two years ago, Andrea Grove-Mcdonough ran it in 1:23:01 and I heard a rumor she stopped a couple of times.
Both races are point-to-point, beginning in the countryside and finishing crossing Higgins Avenue Bridge over the Clark Fork River in downtown Missoula. You'll start with all the cheerful sounds of a country morning, birds, horses, bears (just kidding) and by the time you are too tired to care about that anymore, you'll be cheered on by the sounds of enthusiastic volunteers and fans as you wind through the tree-lined streets of Missoula.
2010 Missoula Marathon Map (PDF)
"I was thinking about moving away last summer but the running club in the town where I was going to move doesn't begin to compare-and that was a big factor in my decision to stay here."
