Because this course is roughly two miles away from my home, I have practiced running this course twice this week in preparation for this race. This course is not a personal record course. It is an out and back course. In short, you run one mile to a development named Olde Stone Way, then run a one mile loop through the development, and then return on the same one mile stretch you arrived from.
As the graph above shows the race starts out with a slight uphill ascent for the first quarter mile of the race, The flip side is the race ends on a gradual descent. You arrive at the development at the one mile mark. Aside of the first hill at the beginning of the first mile, the first mile is a fast one.
The second mile is run through the development. The first half of the second mile is uphill while the second half is downhill. Coming off the downhill of the second mile you will arive at the toughest part of the course.
You are exiting the development at the beginning of the third mile. You then must ascend over a half mile long upward hill at a time in the race where you are going to be trying to conserve energy for a strong finish. This is the 'make or brake' section of the course. If you have not trained adequately or paced yourself properly you will find it difficult to finish the last half mile with any amount of speed.
The last half mile (of the 3rd mile) is very fast if you have any energy to expend. The third mile will be the slowest mile for most runners, which is not atypical. In this case the course will make it difficult to have a fast third mile.
The last tenth of a mile is very steep uphill climb. (see the graph above). The hill eradicates most of the speed you accumulate until this point.
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