Notes
What these courses turn out to be like once somebody measures them.
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Berlin Marathon
A gain figure without its smoothing window means nothing
The Berlin course reads 197 m of climb on a raw global elevation model, 115 m on a bare-earth one, 68 m smoothed over 200 m and 35.9 m smoothed over a kilometre. Same course, same day. We filed one of those figures under the wrong window ourselves, and a schema caught it before a film did.
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Berlin Marathon
Flat is its own trap
Thirteen world records have been set in Berlin and almost every explanation credits the flatness. The flatness is real and it is not the reason. The reason is where the corners fall - 21 of 44 before halfway, none of them a hairpin - and that is also what makes it dangerous.