“Measured by wheels or watches? Watches are not reliable and even more so on a course with many turns. Plenty of interference. Not a 5k. Times are too fast for a 5k”
Interference? Right. The trees on those soccer pitches are pretty thick.
Found a .gpx file of someone walking the course. It obviously isn't 100% accurate but definitely a good indicator of a long course. 4.99k long from gps data while walking so safe to say it's essentially 5k if you don't run all the tangents. This makes sense as well because Landon Pretre's 14:46 tonight would roughly be a 14:17 3 mile which makes sense since he ran 14:06 last year. Also another higher profile runner Mccoy Brooks ran over 15 when he was expected to be well under.
there was another high profile athlete that raced today: Malcolm Oakes. He won the Lowell Invitational probably the 2nd biggest early invitational behind Cool Breeze. He only ran 14:59 thats crazy
I don’t like this response. Yes watches are off but he should be pressuring them to wheel the course and release an official distance. The course map is different than the course being run too. Generally I don’t care what times are for cross country but a meet like Woodbridge is advertised and sought after because of times. If they could wheel it out and give everyone a better sense of what they’re running that’d be more than enough with the rest of the ‘talking’ being done by placements in tomorrows sweepstakes races. Also just imagine you ran 14:06 last year and then you’re coming across the line to see that you’re over 30 seconds slower. I’m sure that guy realized it was long eventually but that moment can be crushing for some people who’ve built up a strong trust that Woodbridge would be three miles exactly.
“Measured by wheels or watches? Watches are not reliable and even more so on a course with many turns. Plenty of interference. Not a 5k. Times are too fast for a 5k”
That's just a partial answer. The real question isn't "Is it a 5k", it is "Why does it seem longer than the listed 3 miles?". Hopefully a more complete answer will be coming, maybe tomorrow
As someone who has been coaching athletes at Woodbridge for more than two decades, I can certainly assure everyone that this year‘s course is quite a bit longer than last year‘s course. What the distance is for each course, well I can’t answer that.
Just checked 23 Strava entries, only Garmin or COROS (never include Apple Watches). Average and median is 3.09 miles. Min 3.06 mi, max 3.11 mi.
That makes me think it's 3 miles. First, look at the minimum distance, not the average or max. Since people run tangents imperfectly, the shortest is more likely to be closest to tracking the shortest possible route. The curves easily make up the difference over a 3.0 reading - not from "interference", just how GPS watches track curves poorly.
If you run a 400m track (and don't have one of those new watches that have a track mode), you'll usually see they track long 0.26 or 0.27 or something like that instead of 0.2485. A track is two 180-degree curves connected by two straightaways, and the errors are coming from those curves. Looking at the course map, it has something like 25-30 90-degree or 180-degree curves in it. It's going to read long on the watch.
If the course was different last year, sure that could have been shorter, especially if Strava was showing a shorter distances on average. Maybe this year is closer to 3.0, and last year less than that. So what? It's cross country, not a certified distance road race. It shouldn't be flat and fast. If I were 👑, cross country courses would be homologated to require a certain amount of total climbing/descending or steep runups (think cyclocross, where they shoulder their bikes to run up short, steep banks/climbs). (That wouldn't be practical for all races or in flatland, but as King, I'd declare that a championship course would need to be homologated.)
Ive had the exact opposite experience, laps on a track are basically always shorter on mine and my athletes watches. besides that this years course seems to have less turns than last years since they changed to the longer straight away mile one.
Ive had the exact opposite experience, laps on a track are basically always shorter on mine and my athletes watches. besides that this years course seems to have less turns than last years since they changed to the longer straight away mile one.
It's likely the algorithms in the watches have changed/improved since my watches (a couple Suuntos and a Garmin) that always read consistently long on a track. But you saying that you see "always shorter" shows that they still have an issue with accuracy and bias on curves. It's possible that the algorithms recognize certain radius curves as being on a 400m track, and are tweaked that way, but have different biases with tighter curves like all the 90-degree one on this course. Even if it has fewer turns than last year, it still has two or three dozen turns depending on how you count them. I wouldn't trust the accuracy of GPS on a curvy course with confidence of better than around 5%.
It's a competition, people. Let one boy race another, and may the best one win. September cross country times are irrelevant. Knowing that you can beat the guy to the finish line next time is more relevant.
It's a competition, people. Let one boy race another, and may the best one win. September cross country times are irrelevant. Knowing that you can beat the guy to the finish line next time is more relevant.
?? There are 200 people in each race from all over the SW USA, and 95% of them don’t know each other. Unless they’re in the top 10, a fast time is very important to each runner.