Distance is a vanity metric
Ask a trail runner how far a race is and they'll answer. Ask them about the elevation and you'll get a real conversation. That's because distance alone tells you almost nothing about how a trail race will feel. A flat 50K on smooth fire roads is a brisk Saturday. A 50K with 10,000 feet of gain on technical terrain is a full-day mountain experience. They share a distance. They share nothing else.
The elevation profile is where the truth lives.
Anatomy of an elevation profile
An elevation profile charts distance along the horizontal axis and elevation along the vertical axis. The resulting shape — the peaks, valleys, and gradients — tells you the story of the course in a way no race description can.
Here's the Western States 100 profile. Spend a moment looking at the shape before reading further.
Notice how the course front-loads its difficulty. The first major climb comes early, taking runners from the valley floor to the highest point of the course in the opening miles. From there, the trend is generally downhill — with significant rollers — all the way to the finish in Auburn. This is a course designed to test you early and reward persistence later.
What the shape tells you
The front-loaded course
When the biggest climbs come in the first third, you're facing them with fresh legs and full energy stores. The psychological effect is significant: once you crest the high point, every step takes you closer to the finish. Western States, despite being one of the world's most competitive 100-milers, has a profile that trends in the runner's favor. That's one reason finish rates historically hover around 80%.
The back-loaded course
Some races save their hardest climbing for the final quarter. These courses are genuinely harder than their total elevation numbers suggest. You'll encounter the steepest terrain exactly when your glycogen stores are depleted, your quads are shredded from earlier descents, and your mental reserves are thin. When evaluating a race, look carefully at where the climbs fall relative to the total distance.
Steady rollers vs. big features
A course with constant rolling terrain — short climbs followed by short descents, repeated dozens of times — is more runnable than one with a single massive 5,000-foot climb. Your body prefers rhythm. The rollers let you alternate between climbing and descending muscles. A single long ascent forces the same muscle groups to work for hours without relief.
Reading the grade
The elevation profile's steepness matters as much as its shape. A 2,000-foot climb over 8 miles is a gentle, runnable grade. The same 2,000 feet over 2 miles is a hands-on-knees power hike. Most elevation profiles color-code the grade to help you see this at a glance:
- Green sections (under 5% grade) are runnable for most runners, even late in a race
- Yellow sections (5-15%) are steady climbing — sustainable but slower
- Orange sections (15-25%) are where running becomes hiking for all but the strongest climbers
- Red sections (over 25%) are steep enough that you're scrambling, using hands, or picking your way down technical descents carefully
Our elevation profiles show grade coloring along the entire course, with aid station markers so you can plan which sections to push and which to conserve energy. Hover over any point to see exact elevation, distance, and grade at that location.
Total gain vs. net gain
A common mistake is looking only at the highest and lowest points. A course that starts and finishes at 6,000 feet with a high point of 8,000 feet might look like 2,000 feet of climbing. But if it crosses three ridges along the way, the total gain could be 12,000 feet. Always look at total elevation gain, not the difference between the highest and lowest points.
The number that actually predicts your day
If you want a single number that best predicts how hard a course will feel, it's not distance or total gain — it's gain per mile (or gain per kilometer). This normalizes for distance and gives you a clean measure of how much climbing you'll do per unit of forward progress.
| Gain per mile | Character | |---|---| | Under 100 ft/mi | Gentle — largely runnable, road-like pacing possible | | 100–150 ft/mi | Moderate — steady mixed terrain, expect to hike the steeps | | 150–250 ft/mi | Mountain — significant hiking sections, slower overall pace | | Over 250 ft/mi | Extreme — more hiking than running, mountaineering mindset |
Most 100-mile mountain races fall in the 150–250 ft/mi range. The hardest — like Hardrock or Barkley — push well beyond 250. A flat road ultra sits under 50.
Use the profile to race smarter
Once you learn to read elevation profiles, you can use them to plan your race:
- Identify aid stations before major climbs — that's where you want to refuel and fill bottles
- Find the runnable stretches — those green, lower-grade sections are where you make up time without spending extra energy
- Spot the crux — every course has a hardest section. Know where it is and what mile it falls at, so you can pace accordingly
- Plan your crew and pacer locations if the race allows them — you want support at the low points, not the easy miles
The elevation profile isn't just a pretty chart. It's the most honest preview of race day you'll ever get. Learn to read it fluently, and you'll show up to every start line with a better plan than most of the field.