quote:Originally posted by Pete Riegel on the GPS thread:
This always makes me mad as a measurer. You set down the splits and the race director does not locate them properly. As a result people who have pace sense doubt the accuracy of the course, and the doubt is mine to explain.
This exact thing happened Sunday at the Philadelphia Marathon. I was running along Columbus Blvd. (sorry Bill, I'll always think of it as Deleware Ave.) and it became obvious I was either hitting the wall REALLY early or I'd somehow missed the 3 mile mark. Then, a minute and half later than expected, there was the clock and 3 mile sign (I was on the opposite side of the road at that point, so couldn't look for Bill Bellville's painted marks, which I saw at every other split).
I'm not sure what happened, but the reaction among the runners was instaneous, yet varied. Only a few seemed to take it in stride. Worse, when we got to 4 miles, which was correctly located, people were commenting about that mile being short, not taking into account that the previous mile had been long (IMO, that was far too early in the race for a marthon-induced brain haze).
On a related note, this year the organizers added a half marathon that shared the same route until just past 10 miles, then took a shortcut before rejoining the full until reaching the finish near the marathon 14 mile point. So there were 2 sets of 11 and 12 mile marks, but the organizers only differentiated between them by using different color signs, but no wording. That caused no small bit of consternation, too.
Finally, in order to make the distance correct, the half marathoners had to run past the finish line 175 ft., make a 180 turn, then come back in an adjoining lane to cross the Chip mats from the same direction the marathoners would finish. Apparently the half course wasn't finalized until the weekend before the race. Maybe Bill can add more details/horror stories.