gorilla hill, the miles 21-24 incline, and the hills nobody expects in oklahoma

By PaceKit Team · Updated April 2026

Oklahoma is flat. Oklahoma City is not. The OKC Memorial Marathon has approximately 750 feet of elevation gain and loss across its 26.2 miles, making it a rolling course with several sections that qualify as genuine hills. The word "Oklahoma" in the race name misleads runners into expecting prairie-flat terrain. What they get is a city built on varied topography with inclines that arrive throughout the race.

Gorilla Hill. The most famous feature on the course, Gorilla Hill is a named climb that the race organization acknowledges on its interactive map as a distinct course element. The hill itself is moderate in grade, but it arrives in the second half of the race and is accompanied by some of the loudest crowd support on the entire course. One runner described it: "Gorilla Hill was the biggest, and that measly hill had overwhelming crowd support, so you kinda forget you're running on a hill." The crowd doesn't make the hill shorter, but it makes it more bearable.

Miles 21 to 24. The more serious elevation challenge is the long, slow incline through the western part of the course between miles 21 and 24. This isn't a steep hill. It's a gradual, sustained climb that lasts roughly 3 miles, arriving at precisely the point in a marathon where your legs have the least tolerance for uphill running. One runner's advice: "One foot in front of the other and you'll get it. Tuck in behind someone if the winds are bad."

The Walnut Avenue Bridge. An early-race obstacle around mile 2 that involves a sustained climb onto and across a bridge. Runners who haven't trained on hills report walking it. Runners who have trained on hills report barely noticing it. The difference is preparation.

The overall profile is rolling rather than mountainous. No individual climb is brutal. But the cumulative effect of constant grade changes across 26.2 miles, combined with Oklahoma wind and late-April warmth, makes this a harder course than the state's geography suggests.