Turnaround Design

Who said it was "too narrow"? I do course layout for a 20K every year, 10 miles of which is on a 9 foot wide paved path. Last year, there were 914 finishers. I staffed the turn around, marked by a cone in the middle of the path, on a slight downhill section. No one has ever complained about this turn around, as far as I know. No one complains as they are running. It seems to me that no one has a problem with this.

We don't have anything that covers this for a single turn-around. However, when designing a course it is never a good idea to have a turn so close to the start.

I would see if a change could be made on the course to avoid this situation.

Gene,
What is too close? If the leader is doing a 6 minute pace and the slowest of the 100 is doing a 12 minute pace, the back of the packer will be 845' (half of .32 miles) behind the leader. That is an average of 8.45' separation. If a couple of guys are racing each other, I doubt 1,000' separation would suit them at a cone turn. My 5k, 15K and HM PRs were on cone turn courses so I think well of them if they get me some flat, fast real estate.

Oscar

With one turn and no cones your not adding much to a course. Yes, the runners slow going around a single cone. Hence if you want to make a coned turn then do it. However, you must adjust the course length after you measured the distance assuming it was a single point.

What I meant if the turn is close to the start then that could be problems.

Hi Oscar - You essentially had about 12' of width for racing in each direction at this spot. I produce a half marathon with about 750 starters that is ~8' wide on a dirt bikepath from mile 1.2 to mile 2.3, we do not get complaints about the width available. I also coach college XC racers and we're occasionally on a course that has a turn or narrow section in the first 1/4 mile. While not ideal, I can't recall any issues that affected the competition. Our home course, in fact, at .22 miles after the start runs behind a baseball dugout which only gives the runners about 8' of width. We have run Conference Championship races on that course with 150-180 high level and fairly evenly matched runners - no complaints have been communicated to me.

For a road race with 33 finishers, I would take the comment that the roadway is too narrow at your race with a grain of salt.