Ask anyone who has run the Flying Pig Marathon what surprised them most, and hill training almost always comes up — either how much they did, or how much they wish they'd done. This is not a course you can talk your way around with strong flat-ground fitness. The elevation profile has a clear shape: a mostly gentle opening, one long defining climb through the middle, and a sustained descent back to the river that closes out the race. Knowing that shape in advance changes how you should train for it and run it.

The early miles: deceptively gentle

The opening stretch, which carries runners across the Ohio River into Newport and Covington, Kentucky, and back into Cincinnati, is one of the gentler sections of the course. It's not perfectly flat — there's a small rise on each bridge approach — but compared to what comes next, it plays as a warm-up. That's exactly the trap: a fresh field, a fast-feeling opening, and no real hills yet all make it tempting to bank early speed. The course's own data on this page has the specific numbers on total climb and course profile; what matters for planning is that almost none of the meaningful elevation change happens before the middle miles.

The defining climb: Gilbert Avenue into Eden Park

The course's signature test comes on Gilbert Avenue, a long, sustained climb out of the river basin up into Eden Park and the East Walnut Hills neighborhood. Multiple race guides and past finishers consistently point to this stretch as the hardest sustained climbing anywhere on the course — a steady grade, several miles long, arriving right around the point in a marathon where runners are settling into goal pace and least prepared to have that pace tested. It doesn't resolve in one push, either: after the initial climb, the course continues rolling upward through the surrounding hilltop neighborhoods before it finally crests. Eden Park itself, near the top, offers some of the best skyline and river views on the course — a reasonable consolation for the legs paying the toll to get there.

The descent and the rolling middle

After cresting near Eden Park and Walnut Hills, the course doesn't simply flatten out. It rolls eastward through Hyde Park and out toward Mariemont and Fairfax with smaller ups and downs rather than one dominant grade, before turning back toward the river for a long, sustained downhill stretch. That descent gives back a meaningful share of the elevation gained earlier in the race, but a fast downhill late in a marathon is its own kind of demanding — different muscles, different fatigue, and a real risk of quad damage for runners who haven't trained on downhill grades.

The finish: flat, exposed, and unforgiving in a different way

The closing miles along the riverfront corridor back into downtown are the flattest sustained stretch of the entire course. After the climbing and rolling terrain of the middle miles, that flatness can feel like relief, but it also means there's no more terrain to distract from fatigue — just a long, straight run home with the finish line, and the skyline that marked the start, back in view.

Training implications

• Prioritize sustained climbs over short, steep hill repeats. Gilbert Avenue is long rather than brutally steep, so training runs that hold effort on a multi-minute grade will transfer better than sprint-style hill sprints alone.
• Practice running downhill under control. The descent after the Eden Park climb is long enough to punish quads that have never done eccentric-loading work; add some downhill running to your long runs if your usual training grounds are flat.
• Don't judge your fitness by early splits. The opening miles will feel fast regardless of your actual conditioning; the real test starts once Gilbert Avenue begins.
• Save something for the closing flat miles. Runners who empty the tank on the descent often find the final, featureless stretch along the river the hardest part of the day to hold form through.

The takeaway is simple: this is a course that rewards runners who train on real terrain and pace by effort rather than a fixed number on their watch. Treat the climb with respect, the descent with control, and the flat finish with whatever you have left.