9.44 miles or 15.19 kilometers is not 15k

Here's a link to what it's listed at on USATF as well:

http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=268226

I hope this is just a bad trolling effort

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Because some chick's GARMIN is the peak of accuracy.

7.5/10

Surely you can't be serious about this, but frankly I'm not 100% sure that you are joking, therefore you get a 7.5.

15.19/15.00 km = 1.012666

So the course could be 1% off (long).

The Garmin could be an "only" 99% accurate method of measure (likely!).

Or she may have not travelled along the tangents (likely!) or she started it before the start or beyond the finish.

That is 190m difference.

I'm not joking...I was skeptical at first, but after I talked to few other people and looked around on the web it got me curious.

I really would like somebody that has some insight to help me out on this.

OK, so if the course is "long" why is it long and has it always been long? All I'm saying is Fam did what he did yesterday practically by himself (43:36).

If he actually had some help pushing the pace and the course had not been measured incorrectly then he might have had a crack at the course/american record. But since the course was long, there's no way in hell he had a chance at the record.

Also, it should be noted that the race used to finish inside the Jaguars stadium. This year the finish was moved outside the stadium because of a monster-truck event set-up inside the stadium.

Another $8,000 was on the line and with the state of American distance running continuing to improve I don't think Todd Williams' record of 42:22 will stand forever. It seems this is a question that should be asked.

If the course was measured correctly, then I'm sorry I even hinted at this. However, on the other hand, is it such a terrible thing to question USATF's measuring of the course if it appears to be incorrect?

gps always measures long, idiot.

darkness wrote:

15.19/15.00 km = 1.012666

So the course could be 1% off (long).

The Garmin could be an "only" 99% accurate method of measure (likely!).

Or she may have not travelled along the tangents (likely!) or she started it before the start or beyond the finish.

That is 190m difference.

This course has so many turn that it would be near impossible to run an absolute "15K". Kinda ironic the OP's friend got the same measurement with her Garmin as stated on the website's map.

Certified courses are always measured "long"

Just google USATF course certification and you will get your answer.

Was there a rail marking the course boundary? I'm pretty sure they had cones placed slightly to the inside of the boundary when they certified it.

Due to national security issues no GPS company can have the accuracy of the military if this was possible than Garmin watches would be perfect at measuring distance.

Okay, I actually thought you might not be a troll until this post. Fam wasn't running a solo effort. There was a pack of four together, and he won by one freaking second. Also, the one and only time the race has finished inside the stadium was last year. Before that it went longer after you came off the Hart bridge and finished up by the fairgrounds.

from the team that measured detweiller in Illinois last summer:

"USATF’s experience with handheld GPS units is that they generally produce measurements between one and two percent long. This is most likely because GPS units connect readings taken along the route. Due to the limits of accuracy inherent to the device, some of these points may be on one side of the measured line, and some may be on the other. The result is a zigzag line, which will naturally be longer than the straight line the device actually followed. Units mounted on a bicycle are generally more accurate than those carried by hand, possibly because they move faster, thus smoothing out the curves more gracefully. Bicycle mounted GPS units also may get better satellite reception because the satellite signals are not blocked by the runner carrying them. It should also be noted that consumer GPS models generally only read to the hundredth of a kilometer, or 10 meters. If greater accuracy is desired, they must be augmented with another measuring device capable of more accurate readings.... The accuracy of GPS is unknown; test results have varied. A GPS is probably accurate enough to measure training runs, but not accurate enough to measure race courses. If a coach or race director is interested in an accurate measurement of his or her cross-country course, the safest way would be to measure it with a steel measuring tape."

http://www.dyestatil.com/?pg=dyestatil-2008-Cross-Country-Detweiller-Report

actually from jacksonville wrote:

Okay, I actually thought you might not be a troll until this post. Fam wasn't running a solo effort. There was a pack of four together, and he won by one freaking second. Also, the one and only time the race has finished inside the stadium was last year. Before that it went longer after you came off the Hart bridge and finished up by the fairgrounds.

Watch the video on Flotrack dude. Fam was alone for the last 4+ miles until the last 200m. He won by one second because he was caught by surprise in the final stretch by a fast closing Tim Nelson. Melson has to make up a 50+m gap over the last mile to come that close. So yeah, actually Fam's effort was largely his own.

As far as the course measurement- courses like that are always going to be long. Unless you take every tangent perfectly, you're going to end up running extra distance. Why would you trust a friends wristwatch GPS over the USATF, the sanctioning body of the race. Measurements are repeated many, many times until they are determined accurate. On a course with as many turns as that, I guarantee whoever was "lucky" enough to be the head certifier measured the course close to 10 times.

So I'll conclude that it was long, but won't ever rely on a GPS again...

On another note, does anybody remember if Todd Williams' record was a solo effort or not...I'm just curious.

If you're a runner, you already know this, but I'll explain anyway. Courses are measured along the shortest possible route. Any time an athlete isn't running directly on the inside boundary of a turn, they are making their run longer than the measured distance of the course. It is difficult to cut every corner as close as possible when running with other people, so almost everyone will run farther than the actual distance of the course. This is even true in track where the "course" is measured to the millimeter. If you run the first lap of a mile in lane 2, you run farther than a mile. If you pass a guy on the turn, you run farther than a mile. The only way that you actually run a mile is if you run directly on the line that the track is measured from (I believe that this is 10 cm inside the rail, but I'd have to check).

Even if the measurement is wrong, it doesn't matter. Every athlete ran the same distance, so the race is fair.

I do already know this...I was mainly just questioning if the race was measured long how in the world would Fam have had a shot at the record and the extra prize money (if Todd Williams's actually ran exactly 9.3 miles. But based on what everybody is saying, it appears that Williams probably ran long too...gosh, what a beast.) To run that fast on a course that winds as much as River Run is amazing.

I definitely understand why Ryan Hall ran Gasparilla a few weeks ago. But shame on him for trying to break a beast of a record like TW's on a course that is practically out and back with almost no hills. I love Ryan Hall, but doing that was pretty pathetic. I guess he wanted a solo effort more like a time trial, but still. Oh well, he's still a heck of a runner.

Thanks everybody.