It’s been awhile seen I’ve posted a new map, although the reason is for lack of time rather than lack of material (a good thing!). But I’m trying to get back into blogging on a regular basis. For new visitors to the site, I periodically like to showcase some of the latest products created by my race course mapping business, Marathon GIS.

This week’s featured map is from the Smoky Mountain Relay (SMR), a 205-mile overnight relay course in North Carolina in early May. Like its name suggests, the course undulates through the peaks and valleys of the Smoky Mountains as it weaves its way from North Mills River to Bryson City.

From my mapping, the course looks to be both beautiful and challenging. It has much more dirt road and trail than your average overnight relay, and the route will take runners to a lot of wild places. It’s the opposite of “urban”.

And quantitatively, the Smoky Mountain route may have a higher difficulty factor than any other relay course I’ve mapped. Looking purely at cumulative elevation gain (gross uphill), the SMR route tallies 26,700 feet! To compare, Ragnar Wasatch Back (Utah) features 14,562 feet of gain, the Wild West Relay (Colorado) boasts 16,459 feet, and the Red Rock Relay (Utah) offers 12,918 feet of gain (although RRR’s 18,275 feet of gross elevation drop can be pretty tough on runners).”Challenging” might be one word to describe the SMR, others might prefer “Himalayan“.

What I love about overnight relays is that they are all unique and each one offers just a little something different to its participants. Some relays are flat, some are hilly (or mountainous). Some offer beautiful vistas of canyons, some the shade of forests or a cool breeze off the ocean. Some are close to home, others are in remote locations.

The SMR course has a lot to offer relay enthusiasts, particularly those that thrive on adventure, have a distrust of pavement, and enjoy challenging terrain. Those that participate in the SMR will finish the race with stories to tell and good bragging rights. I can tell you that the maps have been a lot of fun to make (still in the process of making to the leg maps, actually), and I love doing maps for remote, hilly courses like this one. In terms of cartography, the terrain just leaps off the page, and I try to highlight the natural beauty and ruggedness of the course on the maps. There are not many roads to label on the maps, but I let the terrain and the landscape speak for itself.

I’ve gotten away from showcasing race course maps on this blog, so I figure it’s time to get back to my roots (the blog is named “Marathons and Maps” for a reason).

Recently I finished up a mapping project for a new race called the Palm 100, which is a 100-mile, 6-runner team relay race that hugs the Florida Atlantic coast from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach and back. This race, which is on March 28th, is different than many of the other relays that I’ve mapped, in that it is not overnight, and there are no fixed exchanges.

This yields tremendous flexibility. Teams will decide the the length of each leg and location of relay hand-offs, as long as good discretion is used for the sake of safety and the rule book is followed. This is a new and novel idea to me, and as an experienced relay runner, I like the concept.

From a mapping standpoint, the Palm 100 is unique in that the route had to be exactly 100 miles. The precise distance is very important in certified 5K’s, 10K’s, half marathons, and marathons, but is usually not a concern for long-distance relays. In other words, it usually doesn’t matter if the race is 185.7 miles or 185.6 miles or 192 miles or … you get the picture.

I had to refine my mapping in order the pin the Palm at 100.0 miles. Much of the race is on sidewalks and paved trails, and I was able to use high-resolution aerial photography to zoom in very tightly (up to a scale of 1:900) and digitize the route right on those walkways. With my mouse, I attempted to take every tangent and turn every corner just a runner on the ground would. The end result was the most precise relay course I’ve captured to this point. I have no doubt that it is as close to 100.0 miles as you can get with an on-screen capture method.

This will be an unusual race report, as not only did I not run, but I did not even go to the event. Last year my wife and visited Washington while the Northwest Passage Relay was in progress. I thought the course looked beautiful, and decided that I wanted to run the race next time around. Earlier this year, I sponsored and registered a team under the name of MarathonGIS.com / Fastrunningblog.com, and started making plans. However, a couple things stopped me from making the trip:

1. My wife getting pregnant, and the due date being uncomfortably close to race day
2. My current A.S. flare preventing me from running for several months, plus making my day-to-day ability to run very unpredictable.

So I bailed early on, but stayed on as the team captain and logistic manager. I’ve organized 5 relays now, and team member Dale described this one perfectly: herding cats.

We had:

• runners from 4 different states, with multiple airline schedules
• all out-of-state runners flying in the morning of the race
• another runner who couldn’t make it to the course until 8PM on raceday
• a very small pool of potential volunteers (ended up buying 2 of the 3)
• multiple runners bail out due to other commitments
• last-second ringers bail to join other teams (thanks)
• a last-minute start time change from 4PM to 2PM
• a total of 9 runners actually toeing the line (supposed to be 12)

Putting together the vans and leg order became a cerebral puzzle that looked like a chess match versus a Google spreadsheet. It also reminded me a little bit of the logic portion of the GRE test: “Runner x, y, and z are flying from Utah at times A, B, and C. Runners t, u, and v are already in-state, but live in three different towns, and runner u has to work until 5PM. The 5:15 ferry has a 90% on-time rate. Runner y’s favorite color is blue, and Runner v hates hills and is allergic to peanuts. Our start time is 2PM, and Van 1 will be to Exch 6 by 6:15PM. Determine the leg order.“

Fortunately, I did well on the GRE, and our logistics for this race ended up coming together in the end as well. Van 1 made it to the 2PM start on time, Runner U caught the ferry and made it to Exch 11 in time to run his first leg, and the 9 guys on the team ran their guts out, and by all reports, had a fabulous time. Whew! The only real mishap was Van 1 putting itself in a ditch during Leg 2 (will post pictures when I get them). Fortunately, a kind passerby pulled them out.

Not only did the team run their guts out, but they managed to take 2nd place out of 153 teams (20:31:02, 6:39/mile), and came within 6 minutes of pulling off and upset and winning the race outright. Congrats to Runningshoes.com, with their winning time of 20:25:17 (6:37/mile). Not bad for a 6-man ultra team!

Lessons learned for future relays:

• a 12-person team is not necessary.
  • fewer people creates more room in the van
  • fewer people allows you to use a car, truck, or SUV if you want to save money
  • a faster person running extra legs will always be faster than adding slower people just for the sake of having 12 people
  • you can bond more with fewer people, and also develop a “underdog mentality”

Thanks a ton to Dave, Dale, Craig, Andy, Cody, Tim, Matt, Mark, and Aaron for their good spirits and fast running!

Andy, Matt, Aaron, Tim, Dale, and Craig (photographer: Dave)

Cody hands to Andy at Exch 30.

Van 2, also a drying rack and dormitory. Gotta love the smaller team.

Many people think that GPS is always used to map routes, but this is far from the truth. When I create race course maps, I almost always capture the course remotely using high-resolution aerial photography. Rather than engaging in time-consuming and costly travel and GPS capture, I can sit in the comfort of my office and on-screen digitize the route very accurately and precisely. I don’t have to worry about satellite connection, tree cover, and topographic obstructions. In the end, it saves the client money and creates a quality product that can be trusted.

But the cool thing about digitizing data in a GIS is that you can later convert the data to a GPS-ready format, and load it into your GPS unit for easy GIS-based navigation. For my mapping, I tend to store and edit my data in either shapefile (.shp), MS Access geodatabase (.mdb), or an ESRI file geodatabase (.gdb). While these are good formats for GIS consumption, they do not help GPS users, but I can export to a more universal, “friendly” format, such as Keyhole Markup Language (.kml), which is similar to XML. Many software programs can read and convert KML files, and it can be used to make data GPS-ready.

Most people’s GPS units can accept GPX format, which is also similar to XML. Thus, to get my GIS data into a GPS, export to GPX would be optimal. However, no GIS software that I’ve seen (yet) converts directly to GPX. But most GIS software can import and export KML, and KML is easy to convert to GPX. So the general process is:

1. Convert your GIS format to .kml format. I use Manifold Systems to do this, but there are several free plugins for ArcGIS that can do this as well. Just search Arcscripts for “kml”.
2. Convert the KML to GPX. There are several programs that can do this. I personally use GPS Babel for all GPS conversion tasks, and Babel handles KML to GPX (and vice-versa) very well. Also, I do know that Garmin Trackmaker Free works for this, but I have not actually used it myself.
3. Load the GPX into your GPS unit. Every GPS software will be a little bit different, but people have had a lot of success loading the files I’ve given them with Garmin Mapsource, so I know it at least works with that. But GPX is a pretty generic file type, and I expect compatibility to be pretty good.

Many participants have been contacting me and requesting the Ragnar Relay Del Sol route. The race is coming up in a few weeks (Feb 29-Mar 1), and they want to import the course route and exchanges into their GPS units to help them prepare for the race, navigate the van, know exactly where the exchanges are, and avoid getting lost during this 24-hour, 190-mile race in the desert.

Due to popular demand, I’ve decided to just post my GPX files here. Over the next few months, I intend to post and make public the GPX files for all seven Ragnar relays.

• Download Relay Del Sol KML files (for Google Earth)
• Download Relay Del Sol GPX files (for GPS)

On February 12th Ragnar Relay announced the addition of three new races to their ever-growing armada of overnight relays. These races will take place this year in Washington D.C. (Sept. 26-27), Austin, TX (Oct. 24-25), and Daytona Beach, FL (Nov. 14-15), joining their existing races in Utah, Arizona, Washington, and Wisconsin/Minnesota.

As with Ragnar’s other races, I have the pleasure of making the course maps for the new relays. From the mapping standpoint, it appears that once again Ragnar has devised three more fantastic routes that will showcase the best of the areas they go through.

I was particularly impressed with the Maryland-Washington D.C. route, about half of which consists of the C&O Trail along the Potomac River. It’s looks truly beautiful, and you can’t beat running on a designated footpath. No traffic=good running.

Cumberland, Maryland to Washington D.C. (September 26-27, 2008)

San Antonio to Austin, Texas (October 24-25, 2008)

Tampa to Daytona Beach, Florida (Nov. 14-15, 2008)

(All course maps by Marathon GIS)

It’s been awhile since I’ve showcased a race course map, but the approach of autumn means lots of great fall races! My most recently completed project is the Fall 50, a 5-person, 50-mile relay that takes place on the beautiful Wisconsin shorelines of the Door County Peninsula on October 20th. The race can also be run as an ultra event.

Just from mapping the course on aerial photography, I could tell that the race is very beautiful, and wanted to showcase that by creating beautiful maps that make people think of fall colors. Do do this, I created a color ramp for the false-color elevation that consisted mostly of yellows, oranges, and reds. Another key feature of the maps is the ample shoreline, which I portrayed using the technique of coastal vignettes (multiple-ring buffers). The final touch was using the race’s maple leaf logo as the exchange symbol, which I did by vectorizing the logo in Adobe Illustrator and then exporting as an .emf, which can be imported into ArcMap as picture symbol.

In all, I was pleased with the outcome, and enjoyed creating maps to fit the unique “personality” of the course.

Once you’ve been bitten by the “relay bug”, it’s hard to keep away from team running events. My first overnight relay experience was the Wasatch Back Relay (Utah) in 2005, and I had a fantastic time. Since then, I’ve gone on to run the Wasatch Back two more times, and also the Wild West Relay (Colorado) and Relay Del Sol (Arizona).The Wasatch Back is a particular favorite of mine; the fact that it starts in my “back yard” and traces its way through some of the most beautiful areas in Utah keeps me coming back again and again. For the 2007 race on June 22-23, I rounded up my MarathonGIS.com team again, fresh off of our 2nd place finish at Relay Del Sol this past March. Our goal for Wasatch Back: Top 3 and a finish time under 18 hours.

Read the full article at TrailFit! 

18 hours, 29 minutes, and 29 seconds after departing the start in Logan, UT, the MarathonGIS.com team crossed the finish line in Park City, UT to finish 3rd place out of 296 finishers in the 4th installment of the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay.

This performance equates to a blistering average pace of 6:16/mile over the 177-mile course. The high-altitude course (elevations ranging from 4500′ to 8900′) traverses the scenic backside of the Wasatch Range, and features cumulative elevation gain/loss of 14,232ft/11776ft.

The combination of heat, altitude, lack of sleep, muscle fatigue, and mountainous topography makes the Wasatch Back a challenging endeavor year after year, and we were quite happy with our accomplishment. Weber State and BYU proved to once again be strong opponents, and swept the 1-2 spots for the 4th straight year, with times of 17:40:40 and 17:51:51, respectively. Running stores 26.2 Running Company and Runners Corner rounded out the Top 5, with 19:18:18 and 19:25:25, respectively.

We were hoping to challenge BYU or Weber a little bit, but this did not happen. However we were proud to be the first non-college team to break 18:30. This is not an official record or anything, but we’ll take what we can get!

Thanks to Dan Hill, Tanner Bell, and the rest of the Ragnar Relay staff for their flawless logistics and dedication to providing “the best”. Thanks also to the hundreds of volunteers who sat or stood long (and often late) hours, directing runners, vans, and providing aid wherever it was needed. And thanks to all the participating teams whose enthusiasm and competitiveness make the event what it is.

Well, the Wasatch Back Relay is almost upon us. This means three things:

1. Time to start rummaging around the basement for headlamps, coolers, reflective vests, and other miscellaneous debris
2. Time for a team member to call me to say “I can’t run” due to:
• Injury
• Sickness
• Work
• Dog attack
• Some combination of the above
3. Time for me to go into emergency find-a-runner panic mode.

Every (and I mean EVERY) relay I have run, we have lost runners with less than two weeks until the race, and have had to find last-minute ringers. Fortunately, our ringers are generally pretty fast.

This year, with one week to go until Wasatch Back, our entire original team was still intact. I started to get nervous. Something seemed wrong.

With three days to go (ie, yesterday), our entire original team was still intact. Now I am sweating nervous. This is definitely not right. We should have had one, nay, two runners drop by now. Was someone just not telling me something??

I decided to pick up the phone and make some calls. Turns out one guy was indeed “out” due to sickness and scheduling, just nobody knew about it until now. Good thing I called! As usual with these situations, he was very apologetic, but I never hold these kinds of things against people. Get 12 runners together, probability and statistics dictate that at least one will get injured or sick during the time preceding the race. It’s just a fact of life with runners.

So I learned that we were down a runner at 8AM Wednesday, about 56 hours before our start time. With travel time and planning, we realistically had about 24 hours to find a replacement runner. And not just any replacement, but a runner of 2:40 marathon caliber or faster. A tall order. But this is where things got cool.

Within the hour, our team set the search process in motion. Like clockwork, we networked through phone, email, and blogs, through cellular networks and through cyberspace.

Perhaps our most useful asset was the FastRunningBlog, an online training blog community that most of our team participates in. There are many fast runners on the Blog, and a large number of them live in Utah, which makes them available targets. Blog friends were contacted, as well as friends of friends. Over the next several hours, I received many “no” answers from potential canditates (most people already had a team). But sure enough, by 4PM Wednesday (8 hours later), we had our 2:40 marathoner. Our new teammate was the friend of a friend and is on the FastRunningBlog as well. The system works.

Panic mode is over.

On that note, since joining the FastRunningBlog, my network of runner friends has greatly expanded. I feel like I know half the runners in Utah now. And it’s not just an online thing (which would be exceptionally nerdy), but I see these people face-to-face at most of my races. The Utah running scene is a small pond, now made even smaller by the Blog. From Logan all the way down to St. George, connections and contacts have been made. New friendships have been established, and there’s new places to stay while traveling.

And it’s a heck of a lot easier to fill relay teams!

This week’s featured maps are for the Wild Miles Relay. This overnight adventure relay race is put on by In Motion, Inc., and travels 179 miles from Vail Lake in Temecula, CA to its finish aat San Dieguito County Park in Del Mar, CA. True to its namesake, the Wild Miles Relay travels through some difficult terrain, and takes its 5- to 10-person teams through everything from deserts, to mountains, to the Pacific coast.

Marathon GIS produced two primary map products for this race:

1) A map book featuring the leg map, route directions/mileage, gps coordinates, misc leg information, and the elevation profile.

2) A large overview map (22”x36”) that shows the entire course and the entire profile in an aesthetic layout. These overview maps are good for both planning race logistics and as a souvenir.

My goal with the Wild Miles project was not just to create accurate maps and profiles, but also to “bring the race to life” by incorporating custom elements into the maps. The race’s official fonts were used for exchange and street labeling within the maps, and were also used in the profiles and in the map titles. A false-elevation color ramp was selected that uses warm colors in the desert/mountainous part of the race, and cool colors in the low-elevation coastal part of the race. Multiple-ring buffers were used to create “coastal vignettes”, which enhance the aesthetics of water bodies within the maps. The majority of the cartography was performed in ArcGIS 9.2, Adobe Illustrator CS2 was used to create the profiles, and Adobe InDesign CS2 for the final map and atlas layouts.

Good luck to all those participating in the Wild Miles Relay this weekend!

Over the span of March 30-31, 74 teams and nearly 900 individuals gathered in central Arizona to run the inaugural Relay Del Sol, part of the Ragnar Relay series.My team, MarathonGIS.com, was comprised of 12 men from various locations in Utah, Washington, and Michigan. Some of us were friends, some were strangers. Some of us were experienced relay runners, some were neophytes. Regardless of personal backgrounds, overnight adventure relays have a knack for bring people together, mostly due to close quarters! Every team that does a relay has their own stories, adventures, mishaps, and humorous quotes and inside jokes. The following is our story…

Read the full article at The Final Sprint!

One of the products I offer as Marathon GIS is a custom souvenir map for race courses. These maps are fun to make, but also provide race participants a unique memento of their running endeavor or adventure. I tend to either sell them myself as an on-site vendor, or sell the reproduction rights to the race director and turn over sales and profits to the race itself. Several race directors have taken me up on this and generated additional revenue through map sales. It’s win-win.

I have found that souvenir maps for relay courses sell particularly well. After 24 hours and 200 miles of running, it’s a great commemorative souvenir to show everyone where race went and how much elevation gain and loss there was. My latest set of souvenir maps are for the upcoming Relay del Sol (March 30-31).

The Del Sol course starts in Wickenburg, and then traverses around to the north and the east of the Phoenix metro area. It then finishes in Scottsdale. This 36-leg relay is 187 miles long, and features some outstanding desert running.

I am selling two different souvenir maps for this race:

1. A smaller, 11″x17″ map printed on a glossy cover stock.
2. A larger 24″x36″ wall map printed on coated paper.

The main difference between the two besides size is that the larger map has a transparent aerial photo overlay, which looks pretty cool. The scale of the 11×17 map is too small for this.

Both base maps were created in ArcMap 9.2 and then exported to PDF. I then opened up the PDF in Adobe Illustrator CS2 and added some finishing cartographic touches, such as labeling exchanges with specialized fonts, adding the Ragnar Relay logo as a transparent layer underneath the GIS layers (roads, course route, labeling, etc.), and adding a subtle drop shadow to the course route itself to give it some depth and emphasis. I was pleased with the final look of these effects.

The profile was created by pasting over an Excel graph to Illustrator, and then letting the Illustrator tools make it look pretty. I added some blues to this profile to “cool down” the map a little and invoke thoughts of blue sky in the desert.

Photoshop was also used for a few tasks, most notably clipping out the white background that resulted from exporting the Arizona overview map from ArcMap. The final layout was assembled in Adobe InDesign, which is a really great tool for tasks like this.

In all, the maps were a good project to show (and learn) how ArcMap, Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign can work together in tandem to create a final cartographic product superior to that of using any of these programs alone.

The 11×17 map will be sold for $8 and the 24×36 wall map will be sold for $15. See my Marathon GIS Store for details.

The MarathonGIS.com map of the week features the new route for the Wasatch Back Relay. The WBR is an exciting 178-mile, 36-leg relay race that traverses the interior of the Wasatch Mountain Range in northern Utah from Logan down to Park City, and is the cornerstone of the Ragnar Relay Series. The 12-person or 6-person teams run continuously through the night, and typical finish times are in the 20 to 24-hr range. Marathon GIS has been a sponsor of the Wasatch Back Relay since 2006, and designs and updates all of their course maps, profiles, leg books, and 3D animations.

2007 will be the 4th year of this young race. The WBR had 22 teams its first year (2004), close to 100 teams the second year, nearly 200 teams last year, and is anticipating registration of well over 200 teams for 2007. Another way to put it: the race is growing! This means that the race volume has grown to big for its britches (ie the course capacity) in some places. Consequently, the WBR route must be changed to accomodate the growth and also improve the race.

Doing any sort of manual editing within a geographic information system (GIS) requires a bit of labor, but the quantity and depth of this labor can be reduced by setting up a good data structure and workflow. Completely revamping half of the race took a solid two workdays of labor, which is a paltry amount compared to the initial mapping and setup time. Since a solid basemap framework and workflow had already been established, updates were streamlined and efficient, accomodating fast turnover time.

Click here to view flash maps of the course changes.

All of the WBR course changes are constrained to the first half of the race. The most obvious changes are the start of the race, and then the legs preceding the second major exchange of the race (Exch 12). Rather than starting at Hardware Ranch and chundering down Blacksmith Fork Canyon, the race now begins in Logan, which offers a much bigger and more accessible venue. Although beautiful, Blacksmith Fork was getting a bit crowded, plus teams hurrying to the start line tended to drive too fast up the canyon, putting runners on the road at risk.

Legs 1 and 2 are brand new, but then 3-10 will be fairly familiar to long-time WBR participants. Exchange spacing has been altered in order to put Exch 6 in Liberty, meaning that Van 1 does Avon Pass, but the actual course orientation is pretty much the same, barring a few minor details. The same goes for Legs 7-10: it’s a very similar route circumnavigating Ogden Valley as did the previous course, but there are a few different turns, and some exchanges are in slightly different locations. Since Exch 6 is now in Liberty, Van 2 no longer needs to travel to Cache Valley, but instead can meet Van 1 in Liberty, a big perk for those coming from the Wasatch Front or from the SLC Airport.

Legs 11-13 are the second major course change. Rather than running the behemoth summit up New Trappers Loop…there is now a behemoth summitt up Snow Basin Rd! Yes, it will be a long nasty climb, but will offer amazing views, reduced traffic hazards, and a sweet Exch 12 spot at Snow Basin. The race outgrew the old Exch 12 in Huntsville, and Snow Basin will provide ample parking and space for a major exchange.

By the middle of Leg 13, the route rejoins the old course for the most part. There are a few different turns, and in general the route favors more rural roads than before, but the general layout is the same. From Leg 18 onward, the course is exactly the same as it was in 2006, without exception.

Van 1 can now breathe a sigh of relief: they no longer have to run Avon Pass and Guardsman Pass (Ragnar)! In addition, the Snow Basin/Trappers pass south of Ogden Valley is now shared by Van 1 and Van 2, further equalizing the workload and the scenic views. Finally, capacity issues have been resolved, allowing this exciting young race to continue its growth and development.

Relay races have been around for awhile, but they are gaining steam quickly and becoming some of the hottest and fastest-growing new races. Many runners are already familiar with large “granddaddy” relays such as Hood to Coast and Reach the Beach. However, new relays are springing up right and left. The Wasatch Back (Utah), Great River (Wisconsin), del Sol (Arizona), Wild West (Colorado), Green Mountain (Vermont), and Fall 50 (Wisconsin) are all new relays, less than a few years old. I’m assuming there’s all sorts of new relays that I haven’t heard about, but these are just the ones that have contracted me to make their course maps. The point is that they are springing up and growing like wildfire. Why all growth and excitement in relays? Well, in a nutshell, they are just a riot to run. Combine a college road-trip with running and racing, and you get a relay. Most relays range in distance from 50-200 miles, have 6-12 person teams, and can last well over 24 hrs. The general process is 1)pile a bunch of runners into a van; 2)jump out and run 4-8 miles really fast (or slow if you like); 3) jump back in the van and drive for awhile; 4) repeat several times. Sleeping is optional, and is the exception more than the rule. Due to the non-standard leg distances, and often the harsh topography, getting a PR is not an option, which is actually a good thing because it lets you relax and actually enjoy running for running sake. Forget your time and mile splits, and just run hard! Relays make running how it was when you were a kid. Fun. No pressure. Combine that with the comradery and friendships that will develop from being in a van with the same people for 24-hours, and sharing the same adventures and supporting each other, relays give some of the best “bang for buck” for the “entry fee to enjoyment” ratio. I have ran the Wild West Relay once (2005), and the Wasatch Back Relay twice (once as a runner in 2005 and once as a driver in 2006). I’ve seen landscapes and visited places I never would have seen before and made friends with complete strangers that I would have never met otherwise. I recommend that anyone looking for a new aspect of running and racing try a relay. I’ll be running the Relay del Sol this March 30-31. The 190-mile race starts in Wickenberg and ends near Phoenix, AZ, and will travel through some truly outstanding desert landscapes.
Post-edit: Check out the new PC TV clip on You Tube about the Wasatch Back Relay.