Lake Placid Marathon and Half

Nestled in the northernmost corner of northern New York’s Adirondack Park, the town of Lake Placid welcomes more than 2,000 runners each summer for its annual marathon, taking runners on a tour of the park and the area that hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic.

Participants will certainly get a feel for the town’s Olympic past as the race course passes such notable sights as its National Sports Academy, Horseshow Grounds and Olympic Ski Jump and Speedskating Oval arena. The race was recently ranked by a Runner’s World magazine survey as the 2nd-best destination race in the United States.

As Lake Placid is set in the picturesque Adirondack Mountains, the course includes plenty of terrain you might expect in such a hilly region, with some flat stretches combined with a number of moderate uphills and downhills as well as a few steep climbs in elevation.

The course’s most significant hills occur at the ski jump area near mile 5 and at the finish near Lake Placid High School. Race organizers say they are not overly daunting, however, describing them as “reasonable but fair.”