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Reply to "Non-pavement courses"

In UK we have a rule about the amount of off-road surface that is acceptible for a certificate of course accuracy. Up to 10k we allow a maximun of 10% off a metalled road surface (or concrete or other absolutely solid, hard surface). For longer races 1km plus 5% of the course length in excess of 10km is allowed.

The rationale for these figures, introduced in the 1990s, was that a bicycle calibrated on a metalled road surface might be inaccurate by upto about 1% when used on other surfaces.

At a recent meeting of our UK Course Measurement Working Party it was reported that the IAAF measurers recently discussed off-road surfaces. Apparently the existing rule is that a road race must be entirely on metalled roads for IAAF races. The minutes of the IAAF measurers meeting is quoted in this pdf file as follows,
quote:
Rule 240.2
There was some discussion regarding the question of the amount of a road race that could be
held on a surface other than a standard metalled road surface (grass or an allweather
synthetic surface such as the track in a stadium). HJ said that UKA (RunBritain) admitted 10%
of the distance for races of 10km or less and 5% for the incremental distance for races over
10km. It was agreed that this amount was excessive for international races and that the
proportion of the race distance should be no more than 5% for races up to 10km and 3% of the
incremental distance for longer races. This would be proposed to the Commission for
consideration.


This would be a relaxation of their present rule, but not as far as that in the UK.
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