Possible Restructuring of RRTC?

Rather than create your own roster of expert measurers you could adopt the international standard created by the IAAF and qualify your measurers as grade "C", a measurer who has attended a measurement seminar, grade "B", a measurer with some experience that has been recommeded by a certifier and grade "A", a very experienced measurer.

I instigated a policy similar to those mentioned above with the Chicago Marathon in July 06.

A current rule is that the Chairman of Validations approves who does a prevalidation before the measurement is made. I do not see the need for a roster.

This is, indeed, what was done last year for the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. Mike Wickiser and I measured the course after Neville made the decision that the course would be considered pre-validated if the two of us conducted the two measurements required for USATF certification.

Previously, to be considered pre-validated, the course would have to have been measured twice, and them measured a third time, by a measurer approved by the RRTC Validations Chairman.

In the past it's taken time and a lot of people's input for me to be in a position to tell the race director what he needed to do so that if an apparent record was set on his course he could announce that a record had been set and not have to worry about having to eat those words later. If this proposed policy allows us to provide defintive answers to questions like this quickly, that will be a good thing.

I think the point of validation is to provide:

• A second set of eyes that are not full of the pre-conseaved assumptions made by the first measurement team.
  
• A second laying out of the cert course or a re-measurement of it, because any error in that would have been scaled up and the error multiplied into the full race.
  
• A measurement of the course that was ran on the day, not the course that the original measurer intended the runners to run.
  

In a validation it gives the person validating the course the ability to ask questions like, "Where exactly was the finish line?" and "What mark did you use?" (For it will not be the first time some one has used the wrong set of marks, especially if the same or similar course has been used in that location before.)

Some times there is a change on a roadbed, a curb is moved or a median removed. The change may be miles from the start or finish, and may not have come to the attention of the racedirector, but the validation ride will pickup that change.

I know of no way, when doing an orignal mesurement to capture a change made after the fact. That is what a validation is, it is a method to check that, the origanal measurement was right, that the course did not change between the measurement and the race, and that the race was on the right marks. (What if the mark was missing but the RD just assumed he knew where it should have been and repainted them? How does a pre-validation pickup that after measurement fudge?)

An after the fact validation team is chosen because they can be independent. They are not working under the time pressure or same assumptions that the original team were.

Little changes can make a difference. Just closing off one more lane may change the course length.

I also believe that in the back of any astute measures mind is the terrible prospect that some one will come back to our course and verify it at a later date, and we could be found lacking.

That fear keeps us all honest. If you don't have the fear of an audit you may just cut corners on your taxes.

I don't think pre-validation is a good idea. What happens if a course is pre-validated this year, is it still pre-validated for next year?

Does the pre-validation last for the full 10 years of the certificate?

How do you, at the time of pre-validation, make sure the course is not altered or the marks are not disturbed for the next 10 years?

A second or multiple check of the mesurement is fine. Many teams mesuring a marathon will use several riders and slect the shortest course of the lot. The problem is that just repeating the check on the day will not be an after the fact audit and will not be fully independant.

I was mesuring a 5K loop course a few years a go, and had after riding the course about 20 times on a racing bike had the shortest path down pat and the numbers comming out almost identical each time. Then it rained. There were puddles in the road and it cooled my wheels down. Now the numbers changed. Because I had ridden the ride so many times I had a very good base line to know what the counts between marks should be, and now they were different, consistent, but different to the before rain set.

An age group record can be set by as little as a second, or around 12 feet in a marathon, or a difference of 0.00008. It is not difficult for a 26.2 mile measurement to be off or short by 12 feet.

Small changes can make a difference. That's why, when a records is set, I think a validation is in order.

There is also a political dimension that should be considered. We do not work in a bubble. There are other validations that may need to be done.
By delaying the anointing of a new king, and waiting for the official measurement verification, it allows other validation systems time to do their work, like drug testing.

Give the winner a prize, for they clearly ran the fastest, on that course, on that day.

BUT before declaring them the fastest of all time on that distance, it will not harm a record to wait, and let the after the fact validations come in.

Maybe we can learn from other sports, that a pause for contemplation may be in order before awarding the yellow jersey.

I don't think it would be hard to have a standard policy in running that all records were tentative for a period of 30 days.

A delay of 30 days may also help the sponsors and athletes. They would get the initial race coverage, and a second bump 30 days later when the record was announced as being verified. The delay would help the sponsors sign up the athlete and build a campaign around the record. They would have time to take good photos. Time to put together new marketing and press releases based around the record. Time to put the items in place that will give legs to the marketing derived from the record.

To the best of my knowledge, the course that has been the subject of the most prevalidation activity is the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. If I remember correctly, the course was first prevalidated in 1998, and has been prevalidated for every running since.

The race director's motivation for this is pretty simple. The topography of the city of Chicago lends itself to a fast course, because it is almost completely devoid of significant elevation change. The race director invites elite athletes who come to Chicago to run FAST, and he wants to be damned sure that when he announces that a world record has been set, that someone will not come back a few months later and find the course short, invalidating the record, and giving the event a black eye.

In the early years, Chuck Hinde measured the course according to USATF protocol, and, once the course was certified, I measured it again as a validation measurement. Later, as Chuck began to scale back his measurement activity, I became the measurer of record, amd Mike Wickiser came in to validate the course before the event. As you can imagine, essentially tying up three weekends to do this becomes a burden on the race director and his staff. Last year with Neville Wood's blessing, Mike and I measured the course together, agreed on the adjustments, submitted the documentation, and the course was considered pre-validated. As I have not yet been contacted about changing the course, it appears the 2006 course will be used again in 2007, much as the 2003 course was used in 2004 and 2005.

Your concerns about the administration of an event on a pre-validated course are valid, but to this event, at least, they do not apply. In every instance, either the measurer or validator has been present on race day to verify the location of the start and finish. One of us has either been on the press truck or on a scooter at the front of the field to verify that the course was set up the way it was measured.

I think it's imprtant to remember that a pre-validation doesn't happen very often; my guess is that you can count the number per year on one hand. I think when the subject comes up, the RRTC powers that be need to ask "Why?". If the event is not of sufficient stature to insure that one of the measurers or someone familiar with the measurement but not connected to the race is available on race day, maybe they should consider suggesting that a prevalidation isn't the right course of action for the event.