Is The RunningLane Course 5K? Or Is It Short?

True 5k wrote:

Please go onto a route builder and plot out the exact course and come back to me with the distance ;)

I'm looking on Google Earth Pro now, and there's actually a very clear view of the entire course. I can see the painted course markings from start to finish on the image dated 11/18/2020.

I've measure 400m tracks with Google Earth Pro to within 1 meter numerous times, so over 5K, I should be within 12 meters of the actual distance. I'll give it a go... I'll be back in 15 minutes.

I am now dumber after having read this thread. Thank you.

True 5k wrote:

The final mile was downhill, hence the fast times. Have you considered that in a national meet this competitive, it takes a PR performance to be in the top 25? Plenty of guys did not PR, and that is why they weren't in that top 25. Please consider, because aggregated GPS data tends not to lie. One-off GPS data points can be outliers, but aggregated data doesn't lie.

There’s a 20 second difference from the 2nd and 3rd mile. A slight downhill doesn’t do that. This course is supposed to be flat. If you’re saying the course is fast because it’s downhill you’re invalidating the results per se as well, it shouldn’t be considered this holy grail of achievements if the course is downhill

Just measured on Strava. 3.11 without accounting for elevation gain (Strava said gain of 7 ft). Use global heatmap data + satellite imagery to measure along the inside of the course. Let's please just put this to bed.

not a duck wrote:

True 5k wrote:

The final mile was downhill, hence the fast times. Have you considered that in a national meet this competitive, it takes a PR performance to be in the top 25? Plenty of guys did not PR, and that is why they weren't in that top 25. Please consider, because aggregated GPS data tends not to lie. One-off GPS data points can be outliers, but aggregated data doesn't lie.

There’s a 20 second difference from the 2nd and 3rd mile. A slight downhill doesn’t do that. This course is supposed to be flat. If you’re saying the course is fast because it’s downhill you’re invalidating the results per se as well, it shouldn’t be considered this holy grail of achievements if the course is downhill

The course is net flat, but there is variability in elevation. I never said the course was downhill, I said the last mile is. The course is fast because the footing is excellent, the turns are gradual, and the inclines are very moderate (<2%). A downhill last mile in a championship race requires an extremely fast closing time to win. You don't win a national championship without closing hard. I would love for you to find me a championship race with a competitive finish (not a frontrunner) that didn't close fast. Make it a downhill finish and it should be the fastest split of the race. The second mile has the most turns and the most elevation change, so obviously, it is going to be the slower of the three splits.

40 feet down then 60 feet up then 20 feet down. Pretty easy to understand the splits.

nprunner74 wrote:

This course has been wheeled to death. It’s a real 5k. We live in a town with the highest per capita population of engineers. We know how to measure an build things. I know that seems shocking.

Wheels are not accurate unless calibrated and next to useless for XC.

So now how do we measure that can be trusted? Every known possible type of measurement is now not good enough! Ok that solves it, must be short

No, you use steel tape, measure multiple times along the shortest route a runner may take. That’s how every road race is certified

not a duck wrote:

No, you use steel tape, measure multiple times along the shortest route a runner may take. That’s how every road race is certified

It absolutely is NOT done that way. I have certified courses for USATF for over a decade now and have never done that. That’s how you make a calibration course not a road race course.

Oh man I just had a thought of using a steel tape on a Marathon route LOL. Please try to know something before you try to just make crap up.

You use a bike with a Jones Counter that is calibrated riding four times on a calibration course that was laid out with a steal tape

zzzz wrote:

True 5k wrote:

Please go onto a route builder and plot out the exact course and come back to me with the distance ;)

I'm looking on Google Earth Pro now, and there's actually a very clear view of the entire course. I can see the painted course markings from start to finish on the image dated 11/18/2020.

I've measure 400m tracks with Google Earth Pro to within 1 meter numerous times, so over 5K, I should be within 12 meters of the actual distance. I'll give it a go... I'll be back in 15 minutes.

And... it's about 50m short based on a careful plotting in Google Earth Pro. I put the dots within 1 meter of the white line on the curves and did perfect tangents. This isn't measuring on the ground with a calibrated bike and Jones counter, but it should be pretty close. I think Tom Katz, the Olympic/WC course measurer, has said he does similar plots on the computer when designing courses for planning, and it comes out surprisingly close to the actual measurement. Based on how close I get when doing the same plots on 400m tracks, I think my measurement is within 10-15 meters of the actual distance.

I think what someone said that the 5000m is measured to the centerline is probably correct, but I'm not going to spend more time plotting that.

Here are some screenshots of my plot and how I did the tangents.

not a duck wrote:

No, you use steel tape, measure multiple times along the shortest route a runner may take. That’s how every road race is certified

So let me get this straight. Despite aggregate GPS, satellite route plotting, and dozens of wheeling a, you think that somehow all of that compiled data is actually wrong. That the data is lying. That this course is short solely on account of the fast times run. That RunningLane is lying and scheming and deceiving us. That NCAA regionals is short. 15:00 for a 5k is 4:50 pace. On a course like Huntsville, that really is not that absurd anymore. It is perfectly reasonable that 80 of the nations very best runners could average 4:50 per mile on a very fast course with excellent footing, competition, weather, and turns. You had to be there to appreciate how excellently manicured the course was. I have never seen a race more primed to generate fast times. Is it really that unfathomable that the Newbury Park Boys improved from the California State times in the high 14:20s to the low 14:00s on a faster course with better weather and better competition? Simply consider the possibility that you aren’t always right. I would bet my life savings that this steel tape of yours would measured 5km.

Well that solves it. I am sure that this is way more accurate then the hundreds of people that ran it with a GPS and couldn’t find one that came out short.

Have you ever heard of a short course that failed to produce a short result on any GPS? Typically you are questions the length of a course BECAUSE it was short on the GPS. I know here come the “GPS doesn’t count” crowd.

He’s just going to change his name again now that we crushed him

coachy wrote:

Well that solves it. I am sure that this is way more accurate then the hundreds of people that ran it with a GPS and couldn’t find one that came out short.

Have you ever heard of a short course that failed to produce a short result on any GPS? Typically you are questions the length of a course BECAUSE it was short on the GPS. I know here come the “GPS doesn’t count” crowd.

Are you being sarcastic? I am actually more of a believer in GPS accuracy than you are trying to paint me, but it depends on the accuracy you are arguing about. Try a GPS around a 400m track and get back to me. GPS measurements are close, but a Google Earth Pro plot is way better if there is a good view of the course boundaries and put the dots down on the shortest path. The hundreds of people doing the race probably ran closer to 5,000m than 4,950m because they couldn't/didn't realistically run the shortest line.

Now you are equating GPS on a track to this course? LOL

Since you have plotted you can see the turns are way more gentle then a track. I’m far from saying GPS is 100% accurate but when you have dozens of them it’s probably pretty darn close.

I don’t know what your personal vendetta is here. You seem really upset. Maybe you set a PR on the course, or your son/daughter did, beats me.

GPS is not accurate to the precision we’re looking for. I go to a p5 school that just recently built a new course that HAS been certified by multiple organizations, and whenever I run the 5k course my watch is always at 3.2x when im at the finish. Always. Wheeling over grass is not accurate as any bump or deviation from the tangent is going to cause error.

If you’re willing to bet your life savings, I encourage you to go down to the course and measure it and cough it up. Look, I can appreciate performances as performances but the times don’t add up. Another user pointed out that the average PR of the top 25 boys was 30 seconds.

Take Riley Hough for example. Amazing runner. One of the best of his class. Do you know how much he PRed from 10 to 11 grade? 19 seconds. From 11 to 12 not including running lane? 11 seconds. But now all of a sudden he’s setting a 27 second PR. It just doesn’t happen like that. Look, I’m not a Dathan fan or anything. I could care less about xc national record mumbo jumbo, but I’ve been around this sport long enough to recognize when something is not right.

coachy wrote:

Well that solves it. I am sure that this is way more accurate then the hundreds of people that ran it with a GPS and couldn’t find one that came out short.

Have you ever heard of a short course that failed to produce a short result on any GPS? Typically you are questions the length of a course BECAUSE it was short on the GPS. I know here come the “GPS doesn’t count” crowd.

I hit the post button accidently before I finished my post. 4,950 meters is 3.076 miles. An accurate road 5K would be 3.110 miles (including a 5 meter short course prevention factor), so the difference is tiny. The GPS recordings cited are more consistent with a 4,950 meter course than 5000 meter course based on how much extra distance you'd normally see on a 5K course measured with a GPS (both from not running the shortest line, and GPS inaccuracy when following curves... the problem you see with GPS on a track).