Košice Peace Marathon

The Košice Peace Marathon is the oldest marathon in Europe and the third-oldest in the world (after the Boston Marathon and the Yonkers Marathon).The first course was held in 1924. The marathon takes place each year on the first October Sunday. The first women’s race was held in 1980.

It is also unique and different from other historic marathons in that right from the very first edition it has strictly maintained the prescribed distance of 42.195 km.

The course is flat, completely asphalted and traffic free, two laps in the historic city center of Košice, Slovakia. The course records were both set by Kenyans in 2012: Hellen Mugo ran a time of 2:29:59 while Lawrence Kimaiyo won the men’s race in 2:07:01.

All the fast marathon courses must have couple of positive parameters. Besides very few direction changes or sharp turns it is of course the elevation profile. In Košice there is a course meeting the most challenging criteria. In Berlin where plenty of world records have been set up there are 21 direction changes on the course in the angle equal 90˚or even sharper. In Košice the number of such direction changes on the full marathon course is the same low.
If we have a closer look to its elevation profile we will find out that difference between the lowest point on this Košice city circuit and its peak is only 16,35 m (200,7 m above sea level – 217,05 m a.s.l.). The cumulative elevation gain on the marathon course is then 74 meters.
For your information in Berlin the difference between lowest and highest point is 25,6 m (cumulative elevation gain 37 m) and in Boston 146,3m (cumulative elevation gain 241 m).