quote:2) Couldn't measuring a cross-country course with steel tape be done much more quickly by having multiple pairs of people, each with their own length of tape, staggered so that the position of the end of one pair is the position of the start of the next? For example, if you could arrange in advance for a team of 20 people, each pair with a single 100-meter tape, to chain their tape measurements together, you could effectively measure 1Km pretty quickly. You'd have to have sturdy metal posts embedded in the ground to measure around curves, but high-profile meets usually have those set up ahead of time anyway. It wouldn't take much time to train a willing pair in the proper technique; certainly much less than it takes to train them to use a calibrated bicycle. My experience is that high-profile cross-country meets have plenty of willing and capable personnel than can be tapped. Of course, it would make us all more comfortable if we knew an experienced road measurer was ensuring that the path covered by the tapes adhered to the shortest path the runners could take.
Cross-country courses are usually loops of one kind or another. I'm wondering if one team per loop might be the way to go about this...