Ahead of this year’s London Marathon, we reflect on Kipchoge’s 2016 course record and Keitany’s 2017 women-only world record by featuring Professor Sean Hartnett’s fascinating race maps

Sean Hartnett is the ‘Professor of the Marathon’ – an expert on the 26.2-mile event and major marathon courses across the world.

Since 1984 Professor Hartnett has taught geography at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and served as a marathon correspondent for Track & Field News. He has attended and reported on over 250 marathon competitions, produced over 30 ‘How the Race Was Won’ maps and created elevation profile maps of the Boston, New York and London Olympic marathon routes.

During competitions, Professor Hartnett and his colleague Professor Helmut Winter also record split data from a lead vehicle and display the pace information for the leaders of the men’s and women’s races.

Ahead of Sunday’s Virgin Money London Marathon, we reflect on two of the event’s stand-out performances – Eliud Kipchoge’s course record from 2016 and Mary Keitany’s women-only world record from 2017 – by featuring Professor Hartnett’s fascinating course maps, which include detailed splits, pace graphs, elevation profiles and more.

Click on the image of each map to view.