As many as 7,000 runners take to the streets and neighborhoods of Texas’s capital city of Austin for a long, straight and mostly downhill race each year, as the city’s 3M Half Marathon gets set to mark its 29th annual running in late January 2025.
Though it’s definitely a hilly race, most of the hills are downhill in this point-to-point event, which descends from a peak elevation of nearly 900 feet above sea level near the start of the race to a low of just above 500 feet at the finish line.
Fast and scenic, the course for the 3M race starts in the northern part of the city on Stonelake Boulevard, near the Baby Acapulco Restaurant & Cantina. From there, the course winds around Braker Lane, Burnet Lane, Longhorn Boulevard and United Drive, taking runners past local sights like the Austin Arboretum and the Stack Valley Greenbelt.
In the early going of the first few miles, the course is hilly but stays mostly at the same elevation, before reaching its first real drop just after the mile 1 marker on West Braker Lane. After the fourth mile, the course begins a downhill stretch along Shoal Creek Boulevard, Foster Lane and Great Northern Boulevard, which parallel the MoPac Expressway.
