How Long Is Too Long?

There aren't standards for too long. I would not feel comfortable setting standards for too long. How does one tell that it's too long? A verification ride when one is checking for records could show this, but the course remains as measured.

Understood.

Just taking a devil's advocacy position to illustrate a point: suppose new measurer Sally is in a big rush to get her 5K course certified. She rides 5,500 meters on her first ride and then comes within .08% on her second ride. She submits her work. All looks good, I issue a certificate for 5K.

You should not issue a 5k certificate. The certified distance would be 5500 meters. Call it a 5k if she wants, but it would be listed as 5500 meters.

So, what if it was 5005 meters. Is that a 5K or 5.005 km?

But do we put "Sally's 5k" in the race name field on the USATF website and then certify it as 5.5km?

For a 5k, if the measured distance is 3 meters over 5k, it should be okay to certify at 5k. But what if the measured distance is 10m over, or 20m, or 50m?

Runners should have some confidence that if they run a course that is certified as 5k by USATF, they won't end up running a course that is 5050 meters long.

Leaving out the dirt calibration issue, if a course is measured at 5005 meters, following our procedures, and not adjusted to be 5000 meters, it should be certified at 5.005K. Isn't that the approved, accepted process? I thought that we all agreed (for the past 30-years) that our procedures provided accurate distances, including off sets and locking the wheel and walking a perpendicular to avoid riding a tangent (for whatever reason).

I've had situations where the convenient locations for the start and finish resulted in a course that was measured to be 5001-5005 meters. I don't think it's right to force the race to move the start/finish from a desired location when we're not even sure that extra 1-5 meters is real. But how far do we let that go? 1-5 meters I think is okay. More than that is questionable.

I measured a 5K not long ago where I had to add an out-and-back section that required crossing an opening in a barbed wire fence so that I could get in enough distance. There was only one spot to cross the fence line in hundreds of yards of fence line. There was no other place in the park in which to find any more real estate for the path. When I explained to the RD that the restriction placed on the route would cause the start and finish to be apart rather than contiguous, she practically threw a fit. No explanation would cut it with her. The start and finish HAD to be contiguous. I then had two choices: 1)Measure some non intuitive, difficult to describe and hard to record diagonal cut across the establish park path to cut out the extra ~ 60 feet; or 2) Tell her I figured out an adjustment elsewhere that would tie the start and finish together and just leave the course 60 feet long.

I chose the latter.

Our certificates contain the field "Race Name". Call it what they want, in this field.

For "Distance", put in the actual measured distance. It is what it is. If you put the actual distance in, then the timer can extrapolate what the desired distance time may have been, and also publish that time.

With our SCPF, a 5k can already be up to 5005 meters, with a perfect ride. If, in Mark's example, the desired Start and Finish locations result in a measurement of 5002 meters (per standard measuring practice), the course may be an actual 5002 meters (the entire SCPF was used due to non-perfect riding path), or it may be as long as 5007 meters, due to a perfect riding path. So, the relevant question is: is 2 meters a material difference in someone's time?

I agree with Mark, that up to an extra 5 meters is not material when it comes to time. It may be an extra second for the fastest normal runners, or 3 seconds for the sloggers. It is material, however, in a record-setting situation.

For this reason, I believe we should put the measured distance in the "Distance" field.

But, this raises another question - what do we put on the map? The race name, obviously. But, I think we should also put a comment "due to Start and Finish locations being in predetermined locations, actual course length is 5010 meters". This is fair information for the runners to have. We certify courses, and their length. We are not PR for the event that chooses to have an odd-length course, for whatever reason.

(Now, who is going to argue that we certify that courses are at least as long as the advertised course length, rendering my position moot?)

Again, we are taking this overboard. If someone measure a 5 km and moves the finish to add an extra 5 meters. I say who cares? Just call it a 5 km. I know situation where one measures courses this way and it's recorded as a 5 km.

Yes, there may be some specific amount that we should consider as too long. However, I don't have an answer for that question. Should we examine this at the annual meeting?

Definitely a good topic for the annual meeting.

We're measuing the course to ensure it's at least the advertised distance and not shorter than that. I typically tell people if you're going to make a mistake on your course layout, it needs to be the mistake of being "a bit" long.

Having said that I don't think it's a great idea to call a 6k race a 5k either. If the course measures 6k, the certificate of measurement should say that.

If the RD chooses to call it a 5k anyway that's their right, let them receive the wrath of the runners when they figure out why their times are so slow, and that won't take long....

For the 5K I cited that is 60 feet long, I just left "5K" on the map. No one who ran the race complained, as far as I heard. I will enter "5.0183 K" on the certificate. I see no purpose to calling it anything but a 5K in public. To label the map differently would open a can 'o worms that is best left closed, IMO.

As Brandon and Mark and others have expressed, were my 5K 60 meters long instead of 60 feet, would we be OK to do the same - that is, still call it a 5K on the map as long as we enter "5,060 meters" on the certificate?

Taking this the next step to bracket the numbers: suppose this 5K were 600 feet long? Would "5K" on the map/"5,183 meters" on the certificate be OK?

I have no idea how often this comes up in the measuring world. My recent example is the first time ever for me. I, too feel certain that there must be some % over the advertised distance where we would not want the USATF imprimatur on the certificate of the race. If it is named or advertised as a substantially different distance than we measure, what should the threshold be before we do not allow it to be named a standard distance on the map?

While there are historical "odd-distance" events in New England and in other parts of the country, I do not see an interest or tolerance for anything other than standard distance events in my region, at least as far as those races that would ever bother with certification.

A measurer I know who once did a validation measurement came up .0028% long for that course. The record was validated. For a 10K, just for example,.0028% long would amount to 28 meters (or 92 feet)long. Obviously the record would have been validated at anything longer than the nominal distance after removal of the SCCF. This example begs the question of how this record would stand or fall when a new 10K record is subsequently set by 1 or 2 seconds, as records often are, when the validation showed this new record course to be only 5 feet long. In our system, the slightly faster runner would have to concede his/her record.

I do not agree with Brandon that a 6K race course can be advertised as 5K with no squawk from us. I would not create a map of a 6K that says 5K on it because I do not want my name associated with an inaccurate statement of the distance if it is way long any more than I want to put out a product that is inaccurate on the short side. I just want to know where "acceptably long" ends and "way long" begins..

I agree with Guido. We've been certifying distances using a process that's been around for a long time. If a RD insists on specific start and finish locations that result in an odd length course, then that should be the certified course length.

I once measured a combined marathon and 1/2 marathon where the race director wanted the same start/finish for both courses. The first 1/2 was a loop on the east side of town and another 1/2 marathon distance was on the west side, which made up the distance for the marathon course. The RD did not want an out-and-back anywhere, which would have made it easy to satisfy the start/finish locations. I fixed the finish at one locaiton, and after working with the RD most of one summer, we found roads that would bring the start locations within 16 ft. of each other. I marked and certified the actual 1/2 and marathon lengths 16 ft. apart, but told the RD that if they really wanted to use the same start for both courses, they should use the longer of the two. So, the 1/2 marathon runners ran an extra 16 ft.

A couple of years later, construction forced a change to the second half (marathon course). When I adjusted the course, I added a short out and back.

Then last year, the new RD asked to have a more extensive adjustment to the marathon and insisted that there should be no out-and-back while still having the co-located starts and finishes. I declined the measuring job.

I once measured a 5 km for a charity group and when I was finished the woman in charge asked me to move the finish line up 100m because there was a construction site behind the originally located point and "it wouldn't look nice in the photos." No problem, I said, we just have to move the start the same distance in the opposite direction to make up the difference. Oh no she replied, then the runners would have to walk too far to the start. I wound up charging them for my riding time but never submitted the course for certification, since I felt there was a strong likelihood they were going to put the start and finish where they wanted.

Here's a similar question, related to naming.
There's a local race that is one of the oldest in the state (49th running this year). Just for fun I measured it last year after the race and it came up about 70-80m short of its advertised 5 mile distance.
Now there is no way they are going to change this course after 49 years - too much history behind it (although to be honest, the finish on an old cinder track originally was run the opposite direction and MIGHT have been long enough).
My solution would be to omit any reference to the distance in the Race Name (just call it the so-and-so Memorial Day Race) and list the distance as 4.95 miles. The average runner is still going to call it "5 miles" but at least those who look it up will know the true distance.

We have 3 ways we can write our certificates and our maps when a course is measured to be 5.yyy km long.

Mom & Pop's 5k, Distance: 5 km ------------ when yyy is between 0 and xxx
Mom & Pop's 5k, Distance: 5.yyy km -------- when yyy is between xxx and zzz
Mom & Pop's Run, Distance: 5.yyy km ------- when yyy is greater than zzz

The question Lyman is asking is, what are the values of xxx and zzz?

Nice way of looking at this. My feeling is we probably need to come up with a percent over the advertised distance. The SCPF would not be consider as an overage.

Again, this is a good topic for discussion at the Annual Meeting.

Interesting discussion. Maybe consider, in some cases, putting the distance in quotes if they want it there, the So and So "10 miler". Or maybe not. But if you can get away with just a no-distance name, I like Jim's solution.

I had the impression that a lot of those great traditional New England races had traditional lengths, usually short of the nominal distance. Maybe that's changed over the last 30 years.

Mark's suggestion allows us to keep in mind that there are limits to the accuracy we can claim.