Certified Marathons Only

I've noticed some of that too. I agree that it's a little disconcerting for the same reason you give, Mike. Sometimes I figure a RD wants to make sure I don't expect more payment for measuring an additional course--but you'd think they would at least want it to be measured accurately once.

Is this part of the same trend discussed by the WSJ article Pete posted?

I lost a bid recently on a similar situation. The RD asked for a bid to measure / certify his upcoming event. The information he gave me was limited. When I went to their website, pulled down the course information and maps, I put together a bid to measure all 4 distance (full, half, 10K, 5K). I put together a competitive bid considering the time and effort involved in accurately measuring all courses.
He let me know that he was going a different direction and that someone else received the job.
Since then I have searched for the new cert maps on the USATF site for this series of events, and ONLY the marathons are certified. The shorter races have all been run, as there are results online, but only 1 course is certified.

As a runner, I feel like all 5K races and longer are expected to be certified. In DFW there are a lot of races starting to use "USATF Certified Course" as one of their marketing anchors which baffles me. They don't list USATF# TX99999, they just list that it is "certified" and expect runners to resound and sign up.

I think that the runners, collectively, need to be the ultimate enforcers of this (getting courses certified). I feel like I should do more in terms of outreach, explaining to organized running groups, why it's important. There are so many gullible folks out there that they may need more help understanding what they should be getting from a race.

A few months ago I measured a half marathon for folks who told me they didn't want their 5K certified. I should have realized this was a bad sign but I went ahead. They put up a fight about the invoice I sent them-- among other things I was told that "the course was already designed and pre-measured, it was only to be certified."
But I'm off-topic here, I just want to voice my agreement and say that the runners are going to have to insist on proper measurement.

I fail to see the problem here. Certify what you're asked to certify. Feel free to ask if they want other companion courses measured & be prepared to hear, 'No.'

I would disagree that runners expect all races 5k and longer to be certified. Where I live, there is a summer XC series, the venue has 3 different courses that they rotate. It's advertised as 5k, but although the courses are close none is actually 5k. Entries in that series are very strong compared to local races in general, and every year they get more runners. That tells me runners can be looking for other things that they're going to value more than course certification. (I know, it's XC, not certifiable...just responding to the statement "all 5k races and longer".)

As for road races, as a runner and coach while races on certified courses certainly bring more credibility to the table, there are a lot of races around here that are generally considered to be accurate. Those I'll put in the same category as races on the USATF list. Some people that put on races, I know they care to get the courses right, so I really don't mind if they're not actually certified. On the other hand, there are a couple of people who put on races around here whose reputations are that their courses are never the right distance, so for them even if they got a course certified I'd wonder how they were going to mess it up.

From the race producer perspective the company I work for has some races that are certified and some that are not. All the races we produce are measured by the USATF protocols (by me), it's just that for some we're playing around with the exact start/finish/course so we might not file the paperwork until we dial in exactly how we want the course to be. Sometimes that takes a couple years. Our fastest growing race is a half marathon that is not on a certified course. I'll probably file to get certified soon but so far the fact that we're not on the USATF list has had zero impact on registrations or racer feedback.

Joe,

The thing I don't understand is as follows: You say you measure according to the guidelines, but don't submit the course-Why? The cost is at the most $30 and the Certification is good for 10 years, hence the cost is only $3.00 per year. Don't get me wrong as I'm happy you follow the guidelines and have accurate courses, but why not submit the paperwork?

There's no question that there are many runners out there in this color and mud run world who don't really care much how accurate the course is. And if you have a lot of other things in your race that attract people, you can get a lot of people out.
But there is also no question that guaranteeing that your course is accurate by having it certified is attractive to many runners.
Finally, no one is saying that all runners expect all races over 5k to be certified. But if an event that has many different races of different lengths puts on its website that the "race" is certified, runners expect that all the race courses at the event are certified.

Hi Gene - Sorry so long to respond I only check in here infrequently. You ask a great question ("why don't we submit the course for certification") that has 2 answers... The main reason is that for this particular half marathon we have changed the start and finish lines frequently because the finish is on a street that is going through development. We have a building with parking which is where the finish started out and it would be optimal if we were able to still finish there. But then the trains started to run more frequently so we moved the finish to just the other side of the tracks to avoid any delays 100 yards east of the finish. Then a business another 100 yards west got a lot busier so we had to move the finish line further west to avoid their driveway. Then a housing development got built and the city requested we move the finish line further west. This is our 8th year of this race, we had 4 different finish lines the first 5 years but the last 2 years have been the same...and moving forward, fingers crossed.

Start lines of course changed too. It's a point to point race that starts at a park 7 miles north of the finish. As we kept moving the finish line west the start line got further and further away from the optimal spot. After the last finish line change we decided we were too far away from where the start really needed to be so we added some streets to be able to get the start line back close to optimal. I'm hopeful that what we used in 2013 and hope to use in 2014 will be the course we lock in, at which point I'll file for certification.

Am I wrong in thinking that every time we have to change the finish that we'd need to go through the certification process again?

The other issue is the time to create a map. Those of you who are more experienced can whip maps off quickly, but I'm just getting started. (I know I know, get off the forum and start practicing!)

Filing costs are not an issue for us.

Joe,

When you make a small adjustment the whole course doesn't have to be remeasured. Your Certifier should understand this.

I think that there has been more awareness among participants and RDs about having a course length certified.
As a timing company, we really stress the importance of certification to the RD. We have even stipulated certification as a requirement to utilize our timing service (this is usually instituted after a previous "nightmare" event with the race). This is somewhat self serving since whenever there is a complaint about anything course related, it tends to be directed to the timing tent. Timing companies can also be the perfect scapegoat for all things wrong with the race. So timing uncertified courses can result in bad PR for the timer.

Also, I think most certifiers don't require you to send in an entire application when you adjust a course. I ask just for an explanation of the change, the Jones numbers showing the measurements of the change, and of course a new (changed) map.

Mark, you are correct about there is no need to send the all the paper work. However, the two page application should be sent in. This must be done so the Certifier can fill out the certificate.

When I have a course change cross my desk, I often ask for the original measurement data if the measurer can supply it. Especially if the change needs to be done without a bicycle measurement of the old course versus the new course.

I had a situation where the old course could not be measured, since a bridge was down and a new distance was needed. The old data helps to see the split point differences. If the shortest measurement between the two points is more or less than the "stated distance", then this helps to make sure the change is the correct distance. As an example, the change must happen between miles 3 and 5. If the second ride of the original measurements showed the distance to be longer than 2 miles, the new measurement should use the longest distance of 2+ miles as the benchmark to hit when configuring the new course.

While I try to keep an electronic copy of all of the course measurements I certify, some of the changes are to courses before my time. I don't have the records. But, I also want to see that the measurer has access to these records and uses them to properly address the changes to the course.

If the change can be accomplished by just measuring the old course and then measuring the new course and comparing the two, there is no need to see the old data. But a revised Course measurement data sheet is helpful. And maybe this is something we can work on as an added form to fill out in the case of a "course change".