Should we remove High & Low elevations on the Certificate?
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
No only the other two.
What, are you saying eliminate start and finish elevation?
I think we should stick with all four.
I think we should stick with all four.
I presume Gene certainly means that he advises that we should keep START and FINISH elevation. Those values are essential toward determining record eligibility.
If we have room, I'd lean toward keeping the other elevation values too: Here's why. Looking ahead, it would be child's play to add tremendous utility via an additional filter to the course lookup screen in the "advanced criteria" section, such as elevation variance. This is where the High and Low elevations would enable runners to search for courses of their preference: Hilly or flat. Net elevation alone will not do that.
Earlier this year I measured a course (NY16002JJ) that has a net elevation of zero... but it has a whopping elevation variance of over 200 feet. We can learn that from the map, but it would be slick to instantly query our database for target courses.
The only reason I like the High and Low on the certificate itself is that under our current data capture practice the only way data gets into the national database is if it on the certificate.
We will lose the ability to easily add this feature if we stop capturing this info at the national database level.
JJ
If we have room, I'd lean toward keeping the other elevation values too: Here's why. Looking ahead, it would be child's play to add tremendous utility via an additional filter to the course lookup screen in the "advanced criteria" section, such as elevation variance. This is where the High and Low elevations would enable runners to search for courses of their preference: Hilly or flat. Net elevation alone will not do that.
Earlier this year I measured a course (NY16002JJ) that has a net elevation of zero... but it has a whopping elevation variance of over 200 feet. We can learn that from the map, but it would be slick to instantly query our database for target courses.
The only reason I like the High and Low on the certificate itself is that under our current data capture practice the only way data gets into the national database is if it on the certificate.
We will lose the ability to easily add this feature if we stop capturing this info at the national database level.
JJ
That's a good point Jeff, but if we decide to include low and high elevations in the database it would be done only for future certificates. No one is going to go back and look at all the old certificates and enter that info in the database for them.
Jeff I agree. However, a point of reference about the database recording these. That would be great, but USATF doesn't have an "IT" person and I have found it takes many emails to get it done.