The hexapeptide substrate Thr-Pro-nVal-NMeLeu-Tyr-Thr reacts with porcine pancreatic elastase sufficiently slowly that accelerated crystallographic data collection procedures and two-dimensional transferred nuclear Overhauser enhancement measurements could be used to study the geometry of binding. Both studies report a time-averaged population of the Michaelis complex state, prior to proteolysis. This result provides an important data point along the reaction coordinate pathway for serine proteases. Crystallographic data to 1.80-A resolution were used in the structure analysis with refinement to an R-factor of 0.19.