What's worse? Missing a PR because of a mismarked course or getting a PR on a short course?

Ask Alberto Salazar

Worse is a long course with misplaced or missing cones and poor instructions. You train hard for an event and they can't even provide a map before the race?

Letting either of those things get to me is what would be the problem.

But I'm not running fast enough times or putting in the time and miles, I suppose, so it's easier for me to say that I shouldn't let it get to me.

The short course PR happened to me and that put me on an emotional roller coaster. I was all excited about my new PR only to find out the course was a bit short.

The mismarked course is always frustrating but you are not given a PR only to have it pulled away like in the short race.

The short race is worse PR is worse.

It doesn't really make sense to me to have a road/XC PR in the first place. I keep track of the best times I've run on specific courses, but I wouldn't compare an XC race on one course to my time on another course.

If you care about carefully tracking PRs, go race on the track. If you just want to forget about the clock and compete, run XC or road races.

With a long course you can easily estimate within a few seconds of what your split was through the correct distance. You can feel good about it because you know you actually did it.

With a short course it's guess on what you maybe could have done if[ you didn't die.

seattle runner wrote:

What's worse? Missing a PR when a 5k course is say 250m long or getting a fake PR when it is short?

This is not about GPS differences on your watch. It is about genuine course measurement or marking problems.

If the course is short it's not a PR.

I had both happen to me recently. I go with missing a PR long course. because I know I actually got the PR but for the meismark. On short course, I might not have gotten it. The last short course I ran, i won the race, so I still had to beat all the other people too. I didn't turn down the $50.

I'd like to offer up a 3rd annoyance.

I ran a 5k and hit the 2mi mark in a time that put me a good 30 seconds ahead of a 5k PR for me, and a time that I didn't really see as out of the question. Ended up finishing about 15s slower than a PR after finding out that the 2mi mark was placed at 1.90mi

Kind of a let down to be super excited for your fast time at mile 2 only to have it pulled out from under you at the finish line.

I few years ago I was on pace for what would certainly have been a PR by several minutes in a half. When I finished, my GPS read 12.8x miles, which I didn't think much of because especially back then, those things were notoriously bad. I had "PRed" by something like 9 minutes.

I never stopped my watch at the finish, grabbed a banana and a bottle of powerade and did my cool down.

Turns out that the course was in fact about .3 miles short due to a turnaround being in the wrong spot. I was a little disappointed by that, but comforted by the fact that according to my GPS, by the time I walked through the chute and started my cool down, when I did hit 13.1 miles I had still PRed by a bit.

No Way wrote:

by the time I walked through the chute and started my cool down, when I did hit 13.1 miles I had still PRed by a bit.

haha Cool :)

Once a PR wrote:

I had both happen to me recently. I go with missing a PR long course. because I know I actually got the PR but for the meismark. On short course, I might not have gotten it. The last short course I ran, i won the race, so I still had to beat all the other people too. I didn't turn down the $50.

Were these 2 courses USATF-certified?

In my case, yes, it was certified in the past.

Doesn't matter if they forget to put a cone, the cone gets moved DURING the course, and/or the stewards not aware of the proper course.

road prs 10k or below are irrelevant.. if you want to run a pr go to the track..

answer is neither because it doesn't matter..

what's the similarity between a 10k-or-below-road-pr and posts of "pee arse"?

they both are irrelevant

seattle runner wrote:

What's worse? Missing a PR when a 5k course is say 250m long or getting a fake PR when it is short?

This isn't a real problem because if the course was short you didn't get a PR.

A few years ago I did a Turkey Trot in downtown San Diego and heard the course was short, as I went through the finish line I saw my watch was at 6.0 something miles so I kept running through the finishing area and down the street until it went over 6.2.

I ran an 8km XC race my first year of college that was 500m short; the officials messed up an early turn while setting out the course markers. I ran under 30minutes and was super proud of myself; I was an 400m/800m doing XC only for the scholarship. At the time, it gave me a massive confidence boost that maybe I can atleast run well and maybe make Nationals (CCAA in Canada fyi). I hated all the training for 8km of running, but if I could consistently break 30minutes atleast I could have some, "F-yeah" to my season and break some barriers.

3 days later I found out the course was short. The next week of training and the follow race were awful. I felt really demotivated; if I can barely break 30minutes for 8km on a short course why am I even doing this? I managed to pull together motivation though. After a heroic speech by my coach that was, "Man the f--- up, 3 other guys are depending on you" I helped the college team qualify to Nationals and even managed a qualification as an individual to the champs. My fastest time was 31:21 for 8km. I never got anywhere close to breaking 30 minutes. I only made nationals cause of a strong kick that got me past 8 people in the final 400m.

I'd rather the course have been mismarked than short. Atleast then I would have ran the full 8km and not set myself up for disappointment the whole season.

According to Athlinks.com I have a PR over a barrier that I've always tried to better, but have never done. Now people can stalk me and think I have this PR that I don't because I know the course was short when I ran it. I felt baller that day, too, and it would have been a recent "PR" if the course had been the full distance.

When people ask my 5K PR I tell them a time and state that it's for 3 miles. This happened both in high school AND as an adult. Back in high school I was pretty sure a pancake flat cross country course was measured inaccurately. Then we did an all-out time trial on a track a week later and my time at 3 miles was virtually identical, so I only ever told people I had a 3 mile (4800m technically) PR at what I ran for a split during that time trial.

Then road racing as an adult I ran a fast time and knew it was wrong. GPS watch confirmed it. Very frustrating.

I find it equally humorous when one of the following happens:

-Course is obviously short to anyone knowing their fitness or with a GPS and somebody nearby is celebrating their miracle breakthrough run.

-Course is accurate or like .01 miles long on GPS and some dude is irate because he thinks he missed a PR due to a long course.

There's a run in our area that started as a 3mile 5k for the first few years. Nearly everyone set PRs at that "unaided" course. It became very popular. Brilliant move by the RDs. They've since fixed the course and changed organizers, but it is still popular.