How important is an accurately measured race?

lecheile · 18-07-2010 09:49PM #1

There have been a number of races in the last couple of weeks where there has been issues with course measurement. Last year was characterised by commercial/charity races with a haphazard approach to certified course distances but in the last few weeks we have had examples of AAI permitted races where there has been a question over the course measurement.

Examples include:

(1) A regular race in the BHAA calendar is run 400m short
(2) A 'commercial' race was issued with an AAI permit where the course was measured by the race organiser (although the distance was not questioned)
(3) The largest 5 mile race in the country was confirmed by the organisers as being short

Personally, I assume that when I run an AAI permitted race that I can rely on the distance being one that is properly measured and certified by a competent course measurer (a pre-requisite for issuing an AAI permit) but current form indicates that such an assumption may be unjustified.

So in an effort to inform those who organise races as to the importance (or otherwise) of presenting an accurately measured course - how important is a correct distance to you?

xebec · 18-07-2010 10:08PM

For me it depends on the race, to go with two examples you mentioned:

(1) BHAA race: For me these races are more about competing against other runners of a similar standard that I see at most of the races. The time is nice, but I get more satisfaction from beating someone who usually beats me. I'm not what others would call competitive in these competitions - I'm happy if 20% of the field are behind me - but I do like to have the personal battles.
(3) 5-mile: For me this is more about my own personal challenge. While I might spot others that I race in the BHAA, it's unlikely due to the numbers. Organisers of mass participation races like this have no excuse in getting the distance wrong. They are raking in over €100k for a race like this, surely a small investment is required for accurate measurement. Despite the crowds and the tough course, I was on for a big PB yesteray, I feel denied this because of the error.

That said, the Race Series organisers at least have a chance to rectify the situation with their two remaining races.

Hope I made my point clear about the difference between the two races for me.

gerard65 · 18-07-2010 10:29PM

A race should do what it says on the tin. If it claims to have an accurately measured course, well it should be. There is no excuse for distances on roads to be out by over 100mtrs. If the race does not state its accurately measured its fine if its out. You should get what you pay for. Not sure if the BHAA race was advertised as bang on 5k and I think there was some confusion as to a lap of the track anyway, but their road races are usually measured by a jones yoke. But the adidas series has started patting itself on the back over the last couple of years and the success and easy money (big numbers competing) may be making it complacent. Claims like 'we're the biggest 5 mile road race in the world' is amusing. We're the paying customer and we're only asking not to be treated like mugs.

RayCun · 18-07-2010 10:53PM

I wouldn't run a race if I knew it was going to be short. I might run a race that was bad value, or on a tough course, or I knew would be crowded, or would start late, or.... but not one that was the wrong distance.

But anyway, it's done now.

aero2k · 18-07-2010 11:09PM

Depends on the race.

If it's mainly a charity one, with a small field, then I'd be mildly annoyed if it was short, but wouldn't complain.

If it was something I'd trained specifically for over a long period, and was so arduous that I couldn't do another one within a few weeks (e.g. a marathon), then hell would have no fury like aero2k.

Yesterday's 5m race falls somewhere between those 2 extremes, though the importance of getting the distance right is in direct proportion to reasonable expectations, and in this case over €100k entry fees + the organisers' website claims adds up to a lot of expectation.

RoyNeary · 18-07-2010 11:24PM

Very important. Let's hope that it doesn't become 'all about the goody bag and free stuff'.

robinph · 18-07-2010 11:57PM

The likes of BHAA are generally very good at their road distances, but I'd not be overly annoyed with a slightly off distance course as it's also about the brack and chatting and team prizes afterwards. They are usually very good with their road distance races.

The likes of a charity event I'd like to have a decently measured course, might not expect it to be totally spot on but if it's not even close then they wouldn't be getting my money again the next year.

Club run races I'd expect to be spot on as a point of principle on their part, but if they say it's an approximate distance then that is fine. Good cakes afterwards helps.

Purely commercial ones must be 100% with the distance, and I'd put the likes of the race series ones leading up to the DCM and the Great Ireland ones as having a responsibility to show everyone else how it's done as they are at the top of the pile. Between them they have multiple major corporate sponsorships/ TV coverage/ international runners coming over to race and the biggest single participation events in the country. They have to be better than perfect. Crowds are an issue, but that is just good preparation for the likes of running in a major marathon which are always busy, the distance has to be spot on though for their courses though.

RoyMcC · 19-07-2010 08:45AM

Really there's no excuse for a 'short' race. Using a properly calibrated Jones counter (officially recognised) or a GPS, measure on the shortest possible route, check by remeasuring back from finish to start, add say 50m and you have a course that is 'not less than' the stated distance.

Easy, just needs a little time and care. The only thing that can go wrong from there is that an incorrect course is run.

racheljev · 19-07-2010 09:17AM

To me, it's very important. I'm not a member of a club, I don't enter a lot of races and I'm a mediocre runner at best. It's just me and my Garmin out there every morning! But I'm a mediocre runner who gets a little bit faster every now and again. Last year was the first time I ran this Irish Runner 5 mile and I was looking forward to this year so I could see if I was getting better. I was very disappointed when I realised the course was short. I did the Aware 9/10k in December and I wasn't happy about the short course - but, money was for charity, etc etc, so I didn't get too aerated about it. However, Saturday was a different kettle of fish - expensive enough entry fee, official DCM link up - it should have been perfect. No amount of goodybags, tshirts and sweets (I got midget gems, I would have killed for jelly babies

) can fix that. And I saw the post in another thread which said, run 5m around the park and you'll have your pb, what's all the complaining about? I know I can't replicate a race atmosphere on my own at 6.30a.m - that's what I paid my 20euro for, I should have a nice shiny pb to shout about. Anyway, at the end of that long rant, to me it's a nobrainer. If a race is advertised as a certain distance, at the very least it should be that distance, end of.

tunney · 19-07-2010 09:48AM

Happens in some triathlons as well. Thinking that if they are short then people get PBs and everyone wants to do them.

Doesn't quite work

Doesn't stop people doing it though.

meathcountysec · 19-07-2010 09:59AM

The essence of the sport, whether it be on track or road is accurate measurement of time and distance. You are competing against yourself over a known distance/time. Of course the distance should be accurate, as should the time. Otherwise what's the point?

TheRoadRunner · 19-07-2010 10:24AM

I think it's very important, the most vital part of any well run race.

The one exception I would make is when it comes to cross country. Generally I run a lot slower over the muck and ****e so if the course is a little longer or shorter it generally doesn't bother me as I treat it as a race against other runners purely and times or personal records never come into the equation.

nerraw1111 · 19-07-2010 10:46AM

It's important to my wallet. I pay for the distance, I expect to get what I paid for. Really that simple for me.

To quote Fr Liam Deliverance from Fr Ted: "It's shoddy, shoddy workmanship."

However, personally, I'm not at a stage or a mindset where a PB is that important to me.

If it is less than 150 metres short, I wouldn't be too pushed as it'd be relatively easy to recalculate the time. But totally understand why it matters to some.

bazman · 19-07-2010 10:54AM

An accurate course is critical for any road race. The idea of a PB in Ireland on the roads is now a joke. Championship races & well established routes seem to be the only trustworthy races ...

Organisers of these races should ensure the distance is as advertisied and AAI should ensure that if they saction a race that it is accurately measured.

DustyBin · 19-07-2010 11:48AM

The distance for any road race should be accurate full stop.
What's the point in having a 5 mile / 10 mile / 5k / whatever distance race if it's not right?
I've no bother running a race not measured by a jones counter or certified by an official whatsit so long as the organisers have bothered their a@&£ to go out and measure it some other way, or even just ask a local runner to go check it out with a gps watch.
Not being the advertised distance is inexcusable no matter what the profile of the race. If people can be bothered to turn up then the organiser could surely bother to make an effort to measure it.

--amadeus-- · 19-07-2010 11:49AM

IMO you pay for two things in a race, accurate distance and accurate timing. Anything else is a bonus. Get the time or distance wrong and you might as well not bother, they are the fundamentals of a race.

There is no excuse for an innacurate course. But there are reasons for it and the reasons can tell you a lot. From what I have read it sounds like the 5 mile course was accuratley measured but that the start line was incorrectly placed. That's human error and raises a lot of serious questions (if runners noticed it why did marshals not? If marshals did was a decision made to start on time with a short course rather than delay the start and move the start line?). That all said I know Hard_worker and I would imagine that he will be giving himself and the committee a hard time to get the answers to those questions and I can't think of anyone better to learn the lessons and make sure that it doesn't happen again.

And that kind of screw up is different - in my opinion - to a non-permited charity race being re-routed at the last minute by the authorities. And that is different again to a race group advertised as permitted when one of the distances was known well in advance to be signifigantly short but the organisers chose to keep this quiet and run the event anyway.

I suppose what I am saying is that it's always a crime to have a short course but not all criminals are equal!

There is also a lot more to this - have AAI standards slipped or do sites like this and the ready availability of GPS devices just mean that there is nowhere to hide for shoddy races? Either way standards have to rise and I think it's great that ART can bring this sort of thing out to wider public attention.

Which leads onto the next thing - running is a very small community and we all know each other. As ART has become more popular there have been closer links developing between race directors and organisers and teh site. Pacres are an obvious example but people like Eoin Ryan, Locteau and HW bring a huge amount of value to the site and a rapid way for questions to be answered and concerns addressed. But does that have an impact on how we judge thier races in comparison with a race with no ART connection?

aburke · 19-07-2010 11:56AM

bazman wrote: »

Championship races & well established routes seem to be the only trustworthy races ...

National Half Marathon 2005 (?), Tinryland, Carlow.
Short... well short. Rakes of 'PB's that day.
Many cross-country races are short too, but they are not "jones counter" measured.

shels4ever · 19-07-2010 12:15PM

aburke wrote: »

National Half Marathon 2005 (?), Tinryland, Carlow.
Short... well short. Rakes of 'PB's that day.
Many cross-country races are short too, but they are not "jones counter" measured.

Yep I don't mind an XC race been out a bit, Think the Dublin inters was long last year by about 700-800m nearly killed me but would rather a long course then a shorter on when it come to XC.

Road races should be spot on as there is no reason they cant be measured exact.

BeepBeep67 · 19-07-2010 12:46PM

XC is usually due to logistics and I believe can be +/- 10% to accommodate multiple distances starting and finishing in the same area.
Personally I won't run a race that has a legacy of inaccurate distance, or until it's been accurate for few years at least.
I invest too much time, effort, money and run life balance to run a 4.9 mile race or whatever that will never be run at that distance again.

plodder · 19-07-2010 01:06PM

I don't recall any of the BHAA XCs being off by much recently. Sometimes, the exact position of the start line can be a moveable feast, but I'd guess the courses are walked with a trundle wheel to get them right. There's no excuse for big high profile road races though.

robinph · 19-07-2010 01:49PM

For an XC it doesn't really matter as the race is between the other people there and the conditions. You cannot compare one XC race time to another, or even to the same course the previous year. The distance for an XC race is mostly to give an idea of how hard I should be setting out at, although it's nice if they are close to claimed distance.

shels4ever · 19-07-2010 03:25PM

robinph wrote: »

For an XC it doesn't really matter as the race is between the other people there and the conditions. You cannot compare one XC race time to another, or even to the same course the previous year. The distance for an XC race is mostly to give an idea of how hard I should be setting out at, although it's nice if they are close to claimed distance.

True but all races are actually races.. but most people run them at time trials against their own times, would be nice to see how people woudl do if you had a 5 mile race and banned watches and no mile markers wher eyou jsut race the people around you. I've a feeling it would be pb's all round.....

robinph · 19-07-2010 03:27PM

One of the Raheny winter races banned watches I think and you had to guess your finishing time.

Warm Panda Cola · 19-07-2010 03:35PM

Saturday's 5mile race wasn't actually 5 miles?!!! Now i'm even more disappointed with my time:(
Surely it can't be that hard to measure out 5miles..??

BeepBeep67 · 19-07-2010 03:40PM

plodder wrote: »

I don't recall any of the BHAA XCs being off by much recently. Sometimes, the exact position of the start line can be a moveable feast, but I'd guess the courses are walked with a trundle wheel to get them right. There's no excuse for big high profile road races though.

Agree, although easier to manage when you've only 2 races and 1 is double the distance of the other - try doing that for a full suite of races from U/9 to Seniors.

Condo131 · 19-07-2010 03:53PM

--amadeus-- wrote: »

IMO you pay for two things in a race, accurate distance and accurate timing. Anything else is a bonus. Get the time or distance wrong and you might as well not bother, they are the fundamentals of a race.

I agree 100%. No further discussion!

--amadeus-- wrote: »

There is no excuse for an innacurate course. But there are reasons for it and the reasons can tell you a lot. From what I have read it sounds like the 5 mile course was accuratley measured but that the start line was incorrectly placed.

Unfortunately these things happen. I take a digital photo of each of my mile marks for all measured courses, which helps, but doesn't guarantee that marks will be placed in the correct location.

--amadeus-- wrote: »

I suppose what I am saying is that it's always a crime to have a short course but not all criminals are equal!

I get annoyed when I run a course that is short/long. When it's a major race, I get very annoyed and probably wouldn't go there again. When a championship course is out, I really start to bitch!

--amadeus-- wrote: »

There is also a lot more to this - have AAI standards slipped or do sites like this and the ready availability of GPS devices just mean that there is nowhere to hide for shoddy races? Either way standards have to rise and I think it's great that ART can bring this sort of thing out to wider public attention.

I have run in many AAI county and provincial road chps which have been disasterously short or long. Wrt to other races, I find, in practice, that many new races apply for their permit long before they may have selected their course, not to mention measured.

Imho, the AAI, as a whole, have been remiss in looking after this aspect of admin. There is no sanction available for events that are lacking in this respect, whether they are organised by the AAI, a club or any other body, except to withhold permits for future events. (But then we have several events now running without any permit! :eek:...but that's another can of worms :rolleyes: )

I agree it's past the time for incorrect courses to be highlighted. My own club's fixture list now lists the initials of course measurers, where known.

robinph wrote: »

For an XC it doesn't really matter as the race is between the other people there and the conditions. You cannot compare one XC race time to another, or even to the same course the previous year. The distance for an XC race is mostly to give an idea of how hard I should be setting out at, although it's nice if they are close to claimed distance.

XC and other off road courses can generally be adequately measured using surveyors wheels or GPS devices. I don't accept, as other posters have suggested, that distances can be 'adjusted' to cater for differing distances or that, for XC, distance isn't critical. Earlier this year, we had the National Master's Chp courses all short by approx. 25%. I once warmed up on a 4M XC course, finding that full course would have been approx. 7M :eek: - After protesting, a lap was dropped, but we still ran over 10k - for 4 miles! :eek:

We're probably spoiled in this part of the country. Very few courses have not been measured and everyone knows who has measured an established course and, whenever a new race pops up, the question is generally asked "who measured" it, or "did you measure it"

condo(r)131 - AAI National Grade Measurer.

Krusty_Clown · 19-07-2010 03:55PM

DustyBin wrote: »

or even just ask a local runner to go check it out with a gps watch.

You can't rely on a GPS watch to measure a course. They are quite simply not accurate enough. It has to be one of the formal methods (Jones counter) or at the very least, a trundle wheel.

Of course all the best intentions and best measured courses are for nothing, if someone doesn't actually use the measured distance for the race and locates the start/finish and mile markers in the wrong place. It's got to be one of those things that the race director himself/herself takes charge of, because it is so fundamental for the event (making sure it's done, rather than measuring the course itself). More important than making sure there is sufficient goody-bags at the end of the race.

TheRoadRunner · 19-07-2010 04:08PM

Condo wrote:

I don't accept, as other posters have suggested, that distances can be 'adjusted' to cater for differing distances or that, for XC, distance isn't critical. Earlier this year, we had the National Master's Chp courses all short by approx. 25%. I once warmed up on a 4M XC course, finding that full course would have been approx. 7M :eek: - After protesting, a lap was dropped, but we still ran over 10k - for 4 miles! :eek:

Agreed XC courses long or short by 25% is ridiculous. The masters wasn't the only course this year that wasn't anywhere near being accurate.

What I was initially trying to say is that if a XC course was short or long by 150 metres it wouldn't really bother me as much compared to a road race where I keep track of PBs.

DustyBin · 19-07-2010 04:20PM

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

You can't rely on a GPS watch to measure a course. They are quite simply not accurate enough. It has to be one of the formal methods (Jones counter) or at the very least, a trundle wheel.

Whilst I agree and understand that using a gps is not best practice when it comes to measuring a course I think you might be slightly missing the point I was attempting to make Krusty.
For me personally, in a lot of the local/smaller races that are on it doesn't have to be jones counter measured or have been certified by an AAI National Grade Measurer as such things are costly and time consuming.
If I'm entering a local race that's advertised as say 4 miles, costs me a tenner or so to enter, and it transpires that the course was measured using a gps and my gps broadly agrees on the day - then I'm happy out. In most of these instances the organiser has probably measured 3 or 4 times, maybe alternating between running and walking it or whatever - but they've made the effort and I'm happy enough with the accuracy of the course.
Now if there is another small local race that is advertised as 10k, costs me say a tenner to enter, and transpires to be approx 9.1k then I'm not very happy at all - that just laziness on behalf of the organisers that they couldn't go out earlier that morning and stick a turnaround cone somewhere on the course.

Now if I'm paying bigger money, and it's a higher profile race then I'd want it to be deadly accurate, measured on a jones counter pushed by condor himself!!

W.B. Yeats · 19-07-2010 05:03PM

I have simple requirements
1. Distance is right
2. Time is right and
3. Start time is punctual

1 and 2 are absolutes
3. has a degree of wriggle room

I wouldn't get away with paying 90% of the registration fee so don't expect to get an approximation for my requirements.

Question: is there a margin of error that is acceptable at all? (4.9/5 is 2% out)

Krusty_Clown · 19-07-2010 05:12PM

DustyBin wrote: »

If I'm entering a local race that's advertised as say 4 miles, costs me a tenner or so to enter, and it transpires that the course was measured using a gps and my gps broadly agrees on the day - then I'm happy out.

Fair enough and I'd probably agree with you on your set of standards. I'm just pointing out that watch-based GPS receivers offer accuracies of at best 95% (5% margin for error) and that's if and only if you follow a perfect race line. So racing the distance with your GPS based watch (with its own inaccuracies), it's quite likely that they distance will not broadly agree (and we're still talking best-case scenarios here). Of course having hundreds of runners running with GPS watches and averaging out the results may help (as we have seen).

How important is an accurately measured race?

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