UPDATE: Since I made the waypoints anyway, I thought it might be fun to make a video flythrough of the entire 21.1KM of the course. It’s quick and dirty and more than a little silly but it does serve to demonstrate that this is not going to be easy. Check out the video here:
I’m as surprised as anyone but I have officially registered and paid to run a 21.1km half marathon this October. Specifically I have entered the 2019 Okanagan Half Marathon which takes place in Kelowna, BC on October 20th. For those keeping score at home, that’s just 6 months from the time of this writing.
I wanted to know what the route looked like so I could better visualize and mentally prepare during my training. Unfortunately while the official website (available at https://www.okanaganmarathon.ca/route-maps-p183040) includes a “Route Map” for the “21K”, it actually only includes written directions. That’s not terribly useful.
So I decided to manually map out all of the waypoints of the course in Google Earth Pro. I figure I’d post this here in case it’s useful for anyone also participating in the same race or more generally are interested in what 21KM actually looks.
To start us off, here is what the course looks like when taken in as a whole. The segments highlighted in yellow are those that have to be completed twice (once in either direction).
To get a little more insight into how each segment of the course looks, below is a series of 7 zoomed segments where each written direction from the official website is marked as a waypoint.
Section 001-009
Section 009-018
Section 018-021
Section 021-025
Section 025-030
Section 030-041
Section 041-046
Finally, below is a table of all of the official waypoints along with the index number used in the images above along with the approximate distance between each waypoint.
| Index | Direction | Distance |
| 1 | Run east left on Abbott Street | 0 |
| 2 | Right on Bernard Ave | 172 |
| 3 | Left on Water Street | 190 |
| 4 | Left on Sunset Dr. | 896 |
| 5 | Light on Manhattan Dr. turns into Recreation Ave | 535 |
| 6 | Left on Richter Street | 845 |
| 7 | Right on Weddell Pl | 93 |
| 8 | Left on Gordon Dr. turns into Crowley Ave | 895 |
| 9 | Right on Ethel Street, do turn point | 716 |
| 10 | Right on Bay Ave | 117 |
| 11 | Right on Jones Street | 202 |
| 12 | Left on Trench Pl, stay right to Broadway Ave | 360 |
| 13 | Left on Ellis Street | 581 |
| 14 | Right on Manhattan Dr. | 754 |
| 15 | Right on Guy Street | 440 |
| 16 | Left on Manhattan Dr. | 260 |
| 17 | Right on Sunset Dr. | 571 |
| 18 | Right on Waterfront Pathway (Rotary Marsh), | 108 |
| 19 | Turns into Stuart Park Pathway | 1224 |
| 20 | Turns into Kerry Park Pathway | 195 |
| 21 | Turns into City Park pathway | 547 |
| 22 | Enter Hwy #97 tunnel, stay on Mill Creek pathway | 399 |
| 23 | Right on Abbott Street | 445 |
| 24 | Left on Christleton Ave | 1378 |
| 25 | Right on Abbott Street | 96 |
| 26 | Right on Wardlaw Ave | 513 |
| 27 | Left on Abbott Street | 179 |
| 28 | Right on Meikle Ave | 727 |
| 29 | Left on Walnut Street | 73 |
| 30 | Left on Watt Rd | 279 |
| 31 | Enter Gyro Park | 343 |
| 32 | Exit to Swordy Rd | 305 |
| 33 | Left on Casorso Rd | 341 |
| 34 | Right on KLO Rd | 530 |
| 35 | Left on Campus Road East | 644 |
| 36 | Left on Raymer Ave | 436 |
| 37 | Left on Tutt Street | 933 |
| 38 | Right on West Street | 58 |
| 39 | Right on Abbott Street | 365 |
| 40 | Right on Wardlaw Ave | 312 |
| 41 | Left on Abbott Street | 94 |
| 42 | Left on Christleton Ave | 536 |
| 43 | Right on Abbott Street | 94 |
| 44 | Left on Mill Creek Pathway | 1378 |
| 45 | Enter Hwy #97 tunnel, exit onto City | 436 |
| 46 | Park pathway, to finish line | 405 |
| Total Distance | 21000 |
The maxmium allowed time to complete the course is 3 hours 25 minutes which works out to a maximum pace time of 9 minutes 45 seconds per kilometer for each of the 21 kilometers. We’ll see how this goes.
1 comment
1 day at a time – you’ve set your goal, now start chipping away at it. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and stick to your plans. Listen to your body, and rest it when it needs it. You have the ‘plan’ to build up to the distance, try to follow that the best you can, and before you know it, it’ll all come together.