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Sure, it may look easy, but wrap your head around the mountain.

If running a long course is nearly as much a mental exercise as a physical one, the downhill REVEL marathons will give your brain a workout.

All three races start out with blazing-fast, downhill slopes, which combined with a runner's natural inclination to come out the gate hot, may give rise to exuberance at the start that leads to burnout later on.

Moreover, the three courses are not steady descents. Rockies comes closest, with 2,887 feet of elevation loss in the first half and 1,653 feet in the final half, while Big Cottonwood and Canyon City level off even more. Both include uphill sections, with a gradual but steady ascent for a couple of miles after the midpoint of Canyon City contrasting with the steep downhill during the first half of the race.

Any race is a test of wills, the runner against his or her own physical limitations. That's even more true when fast and comparatively easy downhills give way to tougher terrain.

It's important to study the course as closely as possible either by viewing a map and profile, or by running or driving it in advance if possible, said Mark Minichiello, a Los Angeles-based running coach.

"I stress visualization a lot," he said. "If you're running for a p.r., you want to know what the course looks like. You don't want any surprises."

Jackie Miller Stevens ran REVEL Canyon City despite a tear in her right hip, which kept her from the longest downhill training runs. Instead, she alternated downhill and uphill runs with stairs and weight training for her lower body. A resident of San Gabriel near the course, she nonetheless avoided mountain roads for safety reasons, and did much of her training on a treadmill.

She said the second half of the race was tough both physically and mentally, but she's not about to give up. Having done the race once with a 4:07 finish, she's ready to tackle it again in 2016.

"I want to get the mental part of it out of the way so if it hurts, I'm prepared for it," Stevens said. "I want to beat that damn hill. It's a puzzle, training for that race."

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It comes down to training, but not just any kind of training.

A downhill course is an opportunity, though not a guarantee, for a record marathon finish. For REVEL runners like Erik Ekblad, getting the right kind of training involved getting a few IOUs.

Ekblad, 40, and about 25 other runners got friends and spouses to drive them to the top of the Santa Monica Mountains and meet them at the bottom. The long stretches on hills were critical to him beating his previous personal record by about 7 minutes, finishing REVEL Canyon City in 3:15, a few seconds faster than the Boston cutoff.

"We had to beg, borrow and steal and talk our loved ones into waiting at the bottom of the hill," he laughed.

He said the course, fast as it was, taxed his muscles and joints as few others did. Others looking for a PR or Boston qualifying time would be well advised to spend as much time as possible on the hills, Ekblad said.

Ekblad's training was mainly about running an approximation of the actual course. Others spent time in the gym, strengthening glutes, hamstrings and other muscles that get a particular workout going downhill.

Veronique Carney did three long downhill training runs, squats, speed trials and TRX as part of her training for REVEL Rockies. She qualified for Boston, finishing in 3:53, a full 7 minutes ahead of the cutoff.

"If you train, you can definitely get a good time, as I did," the 51-year-old resident of Littleton, Colorado, said.

Teresa Magula, 35, beat her previous record by 6 minutes in Canyon City this year. The stay-at-home mother of two who lives in La Crescenta, California, near the Canyon City course, had run down the same mountains as much as 16 miles during training, so she had a good sense of what to expect.

With the aid of a GPS-enabled Garmin watch, she locked into a 3:25 pace for most of the course before losing a bit of speed around mile 22, when the pavement flattens out.

Based on her observations of other runners, the most common mistake was to push the speed during the first half of the course, a steep and steady downhill, without anticipating flat and even uphill sections between the middle and the finish line.

"Do not ignore the uphill even through you're going predominately downhill," Magula said. "You still need those muscles to go uphill after all of the downhill. Don't be so attached at the beginning to the quick sprint out."

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Downhill courses are faster, but the way you train must change.

Forget everything you think you know about running a marathon. When it's all downhill, the rules change.

Most obviously, gravity helps pull you along, helping runners shave off as much as a half-minute per mile, or nearly 15 minutes over a marathon. It's the main reason all three REVEL races — Rockies, Big Cottonwood and Canyon City — are among the top 20 marathons nationally in the percentage of finishers who qualify for Boston.

Gravity creates opportunities but also challenges. Running downhill stretches the muscles in different ways, and relies on your glutes and abs more than striding across level ground. It also affects your joints differently. And it changes the mental calculus, since no course offers a completely steady descent over 26.2 miles.

"Even if you're a seasoned runner, treat it as though it's your first marathon," said Michelle Krok, 48, who's run all three REVEL marathons and posted her personal record in Canyon City in 2014. "Try to model as much of your training around the course as you can."

More than 20 percent of finishers in Big Cottonwood, Rockies and Canyon City in 2015 qualified for Boston, making REVEL the fastest series in the United States. And it's clear from runner comments that Boston wasn't far from the minds of many participants in all three races. At least 16 percent of the finishers in all three races cited the granddaddy of American marathons as their biggest reason for running REVEL, while "fast" was the reason given by roughly equal percentages of runners, nearly a quarter of the Canyon City Marathon finishers.

All three races are in mountain ranges near cities, so it's little surprise that the beauty of the courses ranks as high as their speed to many runners.

Krok's fastest marathon of the 26 she's finished was Canyon City in 2014, where she posted a time of 3:41. That was just a month after she ran the Chicago Marathon, one of the country's flattest courses, in 3:58. While the Chicago course deviates by no more than 26 feet from the start, Canyon City loses about 5,000 feet, most of that in the early going.

Despite the stark differences in the courses, Krok said her basic strategy remained the same: to keep a steady pace no matter what other runners were doing and no matter how gravity tempted her to turn up her speed.

"For me, it's always been about leveling out my pace and making sure no mile is excessively fast," she said.

Many first-time downhill runners tend to let gravity make their stride artificially long, said Mark Minichiello, a running coach and pace leader in Southern California. Proper running form is even more important on descents, he said, so runners should strive for a comfortably short, consistent stride during training runs. He said runners should aim for a shorter stride and faster cadence.

"By doing so, they force themselves to stop each time," he said. "It's a braking motion. The impact goes up the leg and affects the knee. Runners have more of a chance of being injured on a steep downhill course."

Downhill running relieves the muscles and the heart in particular of some of the work of pulling your weight forward, but joints and certain muscles, such as the quads, may have to work even harder, Minichiello said. That means some time in the gym, not just running along pavement or trails, will pay dividends on marathon morning. And don't forget the ascents, Minichiello advised, even if the REVEL races emphasize fast descents.

"Running uphill helps a runner realize proper form," he said. "It's very hard to run uphill with bad running mechanics. It improves your stride length and knee lift. It makes your butt stronger, your tendons stronger. Typically your glutes, for a runner, are where your problems start."

Krok said maintaining precise foot movements, adjusted for hills, as well as a steady pace helped her conquer all three REVEL courses.

"My primary motivator was that it's scenic," Krok said. "The fact that it's a downhill course was also a motivator, since I'm already good on trails. But the biggest reason was that I wanted to be running through these beautiful mountains, with the trees and the clear air and everything being green."

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Due to a venue schedule conflict, the 2016 REVEL Canyon City Marathon & Half has been moved one week later. The race will now take place on 11/12/16 rather than 11/05/16. 

We are terribly sorry for any inconvenience this date change may cause and are offering a refund of your registration fees if you registered before December 11, 2015 and are no longer able to participate due to the change. If you would like to withdraw from the event and receive a refund, please email canyoncity@runrevel.com before January 31, 2016.

We again apologize for the inconvenience and hope you will still be able to REVEL with us on November 12, 2016.

This is your friendly reminder to Save up to $15 when you sign up through Thanksgiving (11/26/15). Use code CANYONCITY16 at checkout to save $5 and combine with the Facebook and team discounts to get a total of $15 off your registration!

We look forward to seeing you REVEL in Canyon City on Saturday, November 5, 2016.

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