quote:My measurement, without the SCPF, of course, came within a few inches of 12K.
--This one seems to say that you found the course as laid out to be within inches of 12,000 meters, so that is definitely by the skin of its teeth, a little tighter measurement would have found it to be short.
quote:I am stating that the verification/validation I performed, without the SCPF, revealed that 12K on my counter arrived nearly exactly 12 meters SHORT of the actual race Finish line. If my measurement was good, this course (a 12K) was theoretically 12 meters long. Of course, I measured to the Finish line, which came out to 12,012 meters plus a few inches.
--This later quote is more in line with what you told me at the time, which is that there were indeed about 12 meters of "cushion" in the course, according to your verification measurement.
Some things an elite runner might need to think about:
-- This is the way road course length is established. Any "extra" distance they run is a very small price to pay for the ability to set records or compare times in road races-- neither of which was permitted before course certification was established.
-- We don't know for sure if the course had "extra" length in it
-- Even if we assume it is longer than the stated length, it is a very small amount both absolutely and relatively. If someone can run 12K in 30 minutes, they are running about 6.7 meters per second, and the 12 m of SCPF costs them less than 2 seconds. Probably less than they might lose through -- you name it, imperfect following of spr, lack of good drafting, getting squeezed in a crowd, etc.
I'll stop, I just mainly wanted to explain the "skin of its teeth comment.