OK, I am confused - not that it takes much. Jim states: "I told them RRTC does not certify XC courses...". I thought we were now able to certify cross country courses. Tell me if I am mistaken.
After the study demonstrating that calibrating on pavement and then measuring off-road does not produce short courses, I thought we were able to perform XC certifications as long as the route can be meticulously documented for course layout. I have measured a few 5K XC courses employing careful measurements from fixed objects, compass directions, and GPS coordinates for timing points other than the start, finish, or turn around locations. It is a huge amount of work, but I believe my maps and my course documentation, which tends to run to several pages, provides all that is needed to recreate the exact route.
My protocol is to first ride the proposed course before the initial measurement with a bundle of ~ 100 or so engineer's flags. I then place these flags on the course to define the SPR and I note which side of the flag to measure on. For the first ride, I rough out the distance and mark the provisional S/F (I usually employ a contiguous S/F whenever possible). On the second ride, which takes a long time, I stop at every change in direction and note the point with respect to fixed objects, as well as the compass direction. Each point is numbered and its description is recorded.
Every time I have measured this way, the two measurements have come out well within .08%. Two courses I have measured this way have been laid out by persons other than me using my documentation. From what I heard from race personnel, the courses were laid out as measured and the races were conducted successfully.
Regardless of the amount of work, I feel measuring and recording this way is preferable to steel taping anything other than a very straight off-road course. I do not know about any other measurers, but I would not particularly care to steel tape anything longer than a mile, much less 5K.
So, now my question is, aren't there procedures under which we can certify off-road courses as long as we carefully and completely document the route?