"Shortest Possible" Route?

I say yes, measure across the sidewalk. Trouble is, how do you know where they'll jump up on one side and down the other?

Jim, almost every course measured has this problem. I say the course is measured on the road not across the sidewalk.

I agree with Gene. The legal route is in the road.

If courses are measured so that shortcutting is impossible, it's not curbs but building walls that become the course boundaries.

Shortcutting is a problem for race administration, not for the measurer. In most cases it's not the frontrunners who do it but a few folks back in the pack. Ultimately it makes little difference to the finish time.

It can be made clear to the runners that curbhopping is cheating, and that if you are reported you'll be disqualified.

There's another course I measured, the Westport Summer Series 10 miler CT00028DR where runners are not only allowed to run on the sidewalk that cuts a corner, but are instructed to do so (it avoids a bad traffic intersection and the water station is set up on the grass between the sidewalk and road). Since it is the "official" course that is how I measured that one.

Scott, in both cases it's pretty obvious where runners should hop on the sidewalk to cut the course.

I put a note on my map indicating that runners must stay on the road surface, or may use the sidewalk, whichever is the case, if there is a situation like that. I have one (that will now become 5, since another set of courses will be using the corner) where the sidewalk follows the curb, but there is a shortcut across dirt. On my maps, I always detail that corner, and indicate that cones and a monitor must be used at that location. Not up to me to monitor, but if a runner knows he cut the corner, his time is not accurate (if he looks at the map).f

Similar to what I just read a few days ago - "You can give someone the facts, but you can't make them accept the facts" - all we can do is point out on the map the way the course was measured.

I agree that we should stay on the road unless directed otherwise by the race director such as Jim's example.

I remember calling Pete irate during the televising of the NY marathon back in the 80's where the leading female was running up on the sidewalk at every corner. Pete's reply, I believe, was "not our problem".

I remember seeing the shortcutting. I don't remember saying "not our problem" but stand by it. We measure and certify courses. If the organizers don't keep the runners on the course, this is outside our area of responsibility. Thus not our problem.

I have no desire to see RRTC become the road running police.

You mean I can't wear my "Course Cutting Patrol" badge & gun anymore?

BTW, in the original course mentioned, on race day none of the runners cut the corner where I was concerned. However, later in the race they went around the wrong (short) side of a traffic circle and knocked off about 20m.

The course measurement video that J.F.Delasalle did in 1993 shows the method used in France for handling corners - you cut them! It's the expected way for runners to run, so that's how you would measure.

While watching the Detroit Turkey Trot last year my wife and I noticed that after about half the field had passed a few people started cutting through the empty lot at a corner near where we were standing. We yelled something to the first few people who did it, but then soon decided that since half the people doing it were wearing Captain America tights or turkey costumes, it probably wasn't worth worrying about.

I have a question concerning SPR. It may have been answered already but I couldn't find the answer. Say you are called upon to measure a route in a densly populated area that has houses lining the streets and there are ALWAYS cars on the street. It's not practical to have the cars removed from the street prior to measurement. Also, you can be sure that there will be cars parked up and down the streets on race day. I think I know the answer but I wanted to hear it from the experts. My guess is that you use a straight line as close as possible and parallel with the cars and try to get as close to the curb as possible at turns. Is that correct?

You would do an "offset" when you got to the street. Ride next to the curb until you got to the first car. Stop, lock your front wheel, and move your bike away from the curb to a point where you can ride beyond the obstacle. When you pass the obstacle (maybe a row of cars), stop, lock your wheel, and move back to the curb.

A curved street is a bit harder. I try to ride on the curb itself, along the top, if at all possible. I use judgement to add a little bit of distance, depending on how far you did it, the amount of arc, etc., to try to get the measurement as close as possible.

Good luck!

Duane,
Are you staying that one should measure the route assuming the parked cars will be gone on race day - even though most likely they will not ?

I think you have to - suppose the city decides to get tough and tow all the cars the one year some guy sets a course record by a second - that would be invalidated if you measured where the cars were parked.
The toughest case like this is Freihofer's 5k in Albany, where cars are allowed to park on the course even in the park except on race day - they start towing them around 5 a.m. Impossible to get a good ride until just a few hours before the start.

Jim is correct - I measure as if the all the cars will magically disappear on race day. If the city decides to help an event (got to be some payoff, somewhere, I would imagine!), they would cooperate in having the cars moved. So, it is possible the cars will be gone.

Even if half are gone, it depends on where the cars are parked. If they are parked perfectly, there will be ample opportunity for runners to run the proper SPR. So, one must measure for the SPR on the intended route, whether we know for a fact that cars will be removed, or not.

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Russell:
Jim is correct - I measure as if the all the cars will magically disappear on race day. If the city decides to help an event (got to be some payoff, somewhere, I would imagine!), they would cooperate in having the cars moved. So, it is possible the cars will be gone.

Even if half are gone, it depends on where the cars are parked. If they are parked perfectly, there will be ample opportunity for runners to run the proper SPR. So, one must measure for the SPR on the intended route, whether we know for a fact that cars will be removed, or not.

Please forgive me because I am a newbie. I find this stuff fascinating!! Ok, so you measure the course as if the cars are not going to be there but you kinda know they are. That's fine and I totally get the rationale. So you come to corner and since cars are not allowed to be parked on the corner you use the offset maneuver to get you close to the curb; you go around the curve 1' off the face of curb until you encounter another vehicle. You stop again and re-employ the offset maneuver and keep going, so forth and so on. My question then is this. If you have a course, it can even be a 5K, which has a lot of 90 degree turns wouldn't you lose accuracy because of the number of offset maneuvers. Even if you are extremely careful in making that maneuver it would be easy to be off (at least a little bit) with the ins and outs. Common sense tells you that every time you get off the bike and move it you give up something in terms of accuracy. Am I correct or being overly technical or both?

If you do the offset maneuver correctly the error should be random. That is, sometimes you will add a little distance and sometimes you will subtract a little distance. So the probability that your total measurement is off by a significant amount grows very slowly with each additional offset maneuver.