When paperwork is submitted after the event but measurement was done prior, how does a RD know that his/her course was not certified on race day? It's spelled out on the map but not on the certificate. Should it be?

It looks pretty clear to me. The certificate has a line "Course certification effective date." If this date is later than the race was run it seems to me it's pretty clear the race wasn't certified, unless it was run on a previous certification.

The effective date is not the date of measurement, it's the date the data was transmitted to the certifier.

Looks like I'm working with an out-of-date cert.
There are four dates but none of the them "course
certification effective date".

Here is the certificate I'm using. I think it's the latest. I believe Bob Baumel can provide a personalized one for whatever machine you are using.

Gene Newman, Course Registrar, can alert certifiers when he sees that the certificate isn't the current model.

According to the rules regarding certification, the paperwork must be submitted prior to the event for the course to be certified for that event. If the paperwork is sumbitted after the event, the course was not certified at the time the event was run. It does not matter that measurement was completed prior to the event; it is the date of submission that is important.

The rules state that the submission date is determined by the postmark.

Therefore, in the situation Tom references, the course was not certified on the date of the event.

Submitted by whom, the measurer or the certifier?

The measurer.

In the case where the measurer and certifier are one and the same, the date is the date it goes to the next level, which in this case is the appropriate vice-chair.

And "postmark" can be the date faxed or submitted as an attachment to an e-mail note.

Jay,

Your statement "In the case where the measurer and certifier are one and the same, the date is the date it goes to the next level, which in this case is the appropriate vice-chair."

This is may not be the case. This certifier completes his work(math/map), then it should be the effective date as he may wait a number of days before sending off Certificates to the VC.

Jay, Gene is right about when a course is measured by a Certifier. That's a reason races on a time constraint might want to have a certifier measure their course, as it eliminates the lag between measurer and certifier.

Here's another question related to this issue:

Suppose a measurer submits all the paperwork prior to race date, but the certifier kicks it back for some minor tweaks to the map (e.g. the S/F isn't defined well enough). The overall distance is OK. Should the course be considered certified as of the date of the original submission, or the revised version? The latter might be after the race date, but the course itself would not be incorrectly run based on the original version.