What is the effort kilometer?

A figure that says more than mileage
Photo credits:

flickr.com

What is the effort kilometer?

The effort kilometer measures the real difficulty of a route by combining distance and elevation gain.

Formula: effort-km = distance (km) + (D+ in meters ÷ 100)

Example: a 20 km trail with 1,000 m D+ = 20 + 10 = 30 effort-km. This is more meaningful than distance alone for comparing two trail races and estimating your race time.