Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
too short?
Hi guys, I've just found out that a 10k that I ran the other week was 200m short because a marshal stood in the wrong place. I'm gutted, I thought that I had beaten my pb by 10 seconds but I haven't. I suppose the positive way of looking at it is that I now have a pb at the 9.8k distance but I'm still gutted. I know this happened at Newport this year but has this ever happened to you and what is the biggest error you have seen?
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
I suppose I could broaden the question to ask what is the biggest cock up you have ever seen with the organisation at a race?
You could ask for a refund. Breach of contract plain and simple....That or accept it as it was a genuine silly mistake.
A recent 10k I did is allegedly/very likely 150m long, but my gps measured it as 10.02 which is very close. Even 150-200m is only 1.5-2% long so well within acceptable limits of any GPS watch and people accept that level of inaccuracy on every training run.
also unless all races are completely flat, then they are not really comparable, in reality, so a race pb is only relevant next time you do that run. To satisfy the statsman Inside of you, I'd divide my time in seconds by 98 then muliply it by 100 and call that my pb over that (10k) course. At least if you do it again you'll have a fairer target For a pb.
i'v not had a situation like yours but I do understand your annoyance. Sadly, when things go wrong it can ruin what should have been a great experience.
I think 200m is nothing in 10,000m. You could easily spend that drifting off the measured line, weaving around slower persons etc.
Unless you stick to the measured line (eg the blue line painted on the road for the London Marathon - but not usual practice in most races) no-one actually runs 10,000m exactly.
Local 5k had an arrow in the wrong place, so all the runners missed out a loop - probably made it closer to 4.6k than 5k.
Mildly annoying, but hey ho, no-one died and it's only a race.
Might be more hacked off in a marathon, though, as you can't just go out and run another one next week if it was your A race and you had spent months training.
I wouldn't let that put you off though. Great event and assuming my london ballot doesn't come to anything that's whete I'll be running in the spring.
BTW, most courses are measured slightly long to take into account slight discrepancies in measurements (see here). The only way to get a 100% accurate 10k time would be to run on the inside lane of a running track.
This is quite a good explanation. So you might have run a PB after all.
Most complaints of this nature are that I smashed my PB but the course was short so it doesn't count and I'm annoyed.
In your case you only beat your PB because the course was short so you didn't beat your PB - unlucky, back to the training
Trust DCRainmaker to write the most comprehensive explanation for the wiggly race line over-measurement phenomenon.
Ironically, this year's London Marathon is the only one that my Garmin has measured as 26.2 miles, yet it's the one time I've swerved to the other side of the road to give my dad a high-five.
200m in 10,000 is significant. It equates to 30-40 seconds. The difference between missing your PB by 30 seconds or in this case a 10 second PB.
200m is nearer 50s to over a minute for most folk in a 10k
Well over a minute for some of us.......
cardiff half a few year ago.....a massive race where loads target PB's and GFA qualification
Unlike Newport which was an unfortunate error......Cardiff knew the day before that a part of the course had to be closed and instead of moving the start or finish 400 metres they decided that it wasnt important
Last century people didn't even have a fixed distance for the marathon or half marathon.
I just run the race and see where I come verses other people my age. That's about all you can do. Unless, as mentioned above, it's a track race. Getting a PB is good but it's not the be all and end all.
Far too many people hung up on times and distances. Times are all weather and course related anyway.
10.15km and my finish time gives me 6:46 pace which is a 42 min 10k.... Hmmm I need an accredited an flat course next time!
But mostly a flat course me thinkst!
tim... if you run your best race and get a qualification time needed....its gutting to find out it was all for nothing...
you only run cardiff for a time... if you want enjoyment you run a scenic route
Um so an interesting topic this.
First fun runs arewn;t accurate.
For proper club races etc, then the course should have been measured by a qualified measurer and a certificate should be displayed at the Registration in the HQ area to confirm this.
The whole measurement process is quite involved. Usually involves a Jones counter on a bicycle. This is calibrated with a steel tape with allowance made for ambient temperature.
The bicycle is ridden over the shortest course. Apart from big city marathons there isn't a blue line painted but it will have been measured without wiggling about and assuming the shortest line that will legitimately be taken.
There is also a 1 in a 1,000 built in allowance to avoid a short course. So for a 10K race you will typically run 10M over the 10K but it should mean it is never short. For records there is a maximum difference between the height above sea level at the start to the finish i.e. a race which is all downhill is not allowed for records.
Now of course if a marshall is put in a wrong place then there is not much you can do about that. I remember a 5 mile race we did a few years back which was an out and back over two laps. The cone marking the turn out on the course was put in the wrong place effectively shortening the course by 30 yards. Fortunately we were a big suspicious as the leaders came round first time. The official County course measurer happened to be timekeeper for the day. He cycled out rapidly, found the error and moved the cone back 60 yards to cater for the missed 30 and we had a valid 5 mile race! That took some quick thinking and action.
I do remember about 15 years back running the Welwyn 5 mile race. It was very flat and the a number of Kenyan runners came over to attempt the world record at the time. One duly beat it by a lot. As it was a world record, the race had to be measured again to ratify it and then it turned out it was 8 yards short, He would have beaten the world record if he had run another 8 yards but of course it couldn't be ratified. That was very embarrassing for the organisers.
So you could be worst off!
I can almost sympathise with someone who runs 12k instead of 10k. Almost.
But I suspect the majority of people who complain that their GPS doesn't match the course distance don't fall into those categories.
Just an indication on how GPS can be so misleading ... I run at lunch with a mate from work. We both have Garmin 310XT's. We can go for a run, start watches at the exact same secondplace and be side by side round a whole urban 6 mile course, and when we get back there can quite often be up to 2 - 3 tenths of a mile difference between our distances.
Indeed the breach of contract discussion above worries me slightly.
Arguably true but most races are run by clubs who do their very best and most do get them measured. Sometimes errors occur but really most are doing road races as a commercial enterprise.
Of course there are some that do just that. Larger charities and indeed some run there as a business. If you are in the £25+ entry fee category then I think that is fair, as much as anything because they will have full time staff.
Club Races have people going out on a Sunday with a course measurer, marking up relevant mile points and turns on the course as best they can. Obvious enough to find in the future, not too obvious so that a local oik recognizes they can cause trouble, That is the big issue on race day as well. You generally can't mark up the day before because somebody will move a marker or remove it completely. So you typically are going out at 6am in the morning marking up before sending you marshalls out at 9am for a 10am race. Turning up, paying your £10 and running 10k is the easy bit.
I realised my half PB was wrong after a few years when I'd not got close to it. I wasn't further up the field that day and all of my.rivals had done good runs that day.
I mailed the club that organised it and they confessed that it was short that year.
As has been pointed out - courses are all different so impossible to compare between.
It isn't a new phenomenon. Way before GPS an UK Athletics(or whatever they were called then) measured course with an official licence at The City of Lincoln 10k came up 800m short. How did we know? Because people ran a 3 minute mile in the middle and suddenly average runs were coming into the finish with PBs. I dismissed MY pb but a bet plenty of people didn't.
there is a difference between people moaning that their GPS disagreed and the course being officially declared short and power of 10 etc marking them as such...
it is GPS that start to highlight these things.... if you get a lot of the fast boys querying the distance then i think tht it is looked into and a mistake discovered...#
they know what pace they are running each mile
Its not about the money or anything, it was only about 16 pound to enter and it was for charity, I guess I am just a bit disappointed because I have gone from thinking I had beaten my pb by 10 secs to knowing that my time would have been about 45secs slower had the course been 200m longer.
Really interesting article by dcrainmaker, its amazing what a difference the corners can make
Rob... if it has been officially recognised then this isnt anything to do the GPS....and i would be feeling gutted
am the same as you .... I only want a tshirt if its a technical one
Tim- the crouch end 10k(ish) gives out lovely jam doughnuts to all finishers, so that might be right up your street and it is only a short train ride from your neck of the woods.