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

1:59 into this video mile one is stated as 4:26

2:14 into this video, the 2-mile is listed as 8:58

2:59 in, TRP showed them at 13:37 at the 3-mile pole.

I'll start by making my recommendation, and then I'll back it up with data.

Every time an "historic" time is run someone needs to get out there and measure the course with a steel tape. This should be done even if the course was measured the year before. It takes at least two people and can be done in under two hours.

This is the procedure based on the On Course Rating Systems method:

1. Get a high quality tape, let's assume its 50 meters long

2. Get a bunch of small flags and label them 50, 100, 150, 200, ... 5000, 5050, 5100 ... and wish you had bought a 100 meter tape!

3. On the course mark the ends of each turn with a un-numbered flag, 12" from the inside of the turn. It must be clearly visible from the preceding turn.

4. Start measuring at the center of the starting line and aim directly at the first turn flag. The person at the starting line can tell the person at the other end of the tape how to move to get in line with the target turn flag. Even over 600 meters this produces a surprisingly straight line so that the error introduced by any deflections is negligible. All straight line measuring should be done under tension.

5. Place a numbered flag every 50 meters. You might think this is overkill, but trying to keep track of how many 50 meter segments you've measured can get confusing, especially with turns disrupting the process. Mistakes are hard to make with the numbered flags.

6. On the turns, lay the tape on the ground and keep it roughly 12" from the inside line. The tape can't be under tension, but the error introduced here is way less than the total error of any other method.

7. The tape will have to be laid on the ground if any woop-de-dos, or whatever they're called are in the measurement segment.

8. When you're done, pull up all the flags, start at the finish line and do it again heading back toward the start.

9. If the two are off by more than a couple of meters, then you've done something wrong. Go back to step 1.

This is the most precise (repeatable) and accurate (correct) method of measuring a XC course.

4:26 -> 4:32 -> 4:39 -> 26 isn't unreal. Short or not, the registered "two miles" between 1.1 and 3.1 was 9:11, which in no stretch of the imagination suggests the kids ran short.

Wow ! This thread is rolling!

Since few on here want to listen to factual information. I found this gem from someone who gets paid real money to measure courses -

David Katz wrote:

As already mentioned, this topic has been discussed many times. But let me outline some basic

concepts

(for the late party arrivals):

1. I love gadets...I have tons of them

2. Consumer GPS devices are great fun and have many purposes for training and timing (fyi- so is a $10

digital

watch)

3. I am a professional road course measurer.

4. The only accepted method of measurement for a road race is using a calibrated Jones/Reigel (JR)Counter or a steel tape.

5. I have a been using gps unit

on my handlebars to assist with my measurement for several years. The JR Counter is mounted on the front axle of the bike. The gps helps me to know when I am approaching a mile/km point to slow down and look at the counter for the accurate measurement.

4. When a course is measured for Certification, the SPR is measured. VERY few runners ever run the SPR

5. I have measured MANY course comparing the GPS to the JR Counter and can report the following:

- maybe 1 out of 10 times does the gps match the JR Counter

- most of the time, the gps will give me a longer reading. usually 1.01-1.02 per mile. Never have I observed a reading less then 1.00 per mile.

6. 99.99% percent of the Certified Course would hold up against a validation measurement (checked by a top level measurer).

7. If there is a problem with the accuracy of a certified course, it is usually due to an improper course set up.

8. If you use a gps at a race - have fun. If it displays a distance other then the advertised certified distance, keep it to yourself. If you start talking about it, most other runners will realize that you are the new kid on the block and you need to do your homework.

David Katz

IAAF Road Course Measurer

2012 London Olympic Games

Thanks for repeating the known road course measurements, doesn't really apply here at all and that has gone over many times.

Sounds good. Who's doing it?

The history of the NFHS XC course measuring rules has been the source of a lot of chaos.

Up until around 2010 the NFHS rule book stated that courses should be measure "down the center of the path", While USTF always measure their courses on the Shortest Possible Route (SPR), taking the tangent between turns.

The NFHS method was idiotic because not only did it allow runners to take a shorter path around the turns by running on the inside of the path, but it also did not specify an official path width. So the accumulating errors would depend on the number of turns and the discretionary path width chosen by whoever measured the course.

This is what I’ve been saying this whole. Thanks for that

So you could have a course that was set up by qualified engineers that was nominally stated to be 3.00 miles, but would always come up short when measured by sane people. Exhibit A, is the Detweiller course in Illinois.

Around 2007 Chris Derrick was challenging Virgin's 1971 Illinois state record, and I went online to ask if anyone knew if the course length had changed in 35 years. A slightly different version of the discussion we see here happened back then as well. IHSA said it 3.0, but anecdotal evidence showed it might be shorter, but no one really KNEW.

The debate raged so hot and for so long, especially after Derrick came up about 1 second short of the record, that it got the attention of a USTF road race certifier, and the people in Virginia who ran On Course Rating Systems. We decided to go to Detweiller and measure the course ourselves using every method available. Detweiller has permanent markers buried in the ground to setup the course, with the markers every half mile.

Good stuff, DiscoGary!

I have helped a surveyor who used a similar process, but also used a 600' roll of yellow anchor rope to set a straight tensioned guideline, then rotated a 100m steel tape along the tensioned anchor rope and continued the rotation process and that worked well with four guys - one at each end of the rope and tape. This seemed like overkill, but accuracy over quickness of completing the job was their priority. If the ground is smooth and the grass/ground cover is short/sparse, I have had great luck with gear driven measuring wheel being within a meter per km. One click per rotation models have been much less accurate depending on the speed they are wheeled and that is a concern I have with the Jones counters on bikes. Sometimes I think the measuring process is too technical, but it seems pretty obvious that there are a lot of inconsistencies with measuring cross country courses.

This is a summary of what we found. This is where the rubber meets the grass.

Miles

2.9758 Steel tape SPR, On Course Rating Systems (yes they drove from Virginia)

2.9717 Calibrated Jones Counter conducted by USTF certified road race measurer

2.9727 Garmen Edge 305 GPS on bike ~9mph

2.9809 Garmen Edge 305 GPS walking ~3mph

2.9568 Wheel, un-calibrated, inexpensive wheel

2.9502 Wheel, un-calibrated, expensive wheel

An un-calibrated wheel is the worst way to measure a course, and both came up significantly short for us.

Note that the GPS measurement depends on the speed, which makes sense because the slower you go, the more side-to-side errors pile up, and the longer the course will appear. Then the faster you go the more accurate the measurements on the straights will be, but the corners will start to get truncated as the number of samples around the turns drops... leading to an under measurement.

The calibrated bike came up 21 feet, (7 meters) short, which would be good enough for most people. But I watched this guy work and I can tell you no average Joe is going to go through everything he did to get this close. It was painstaking and time consuming. He attributed the error due to changes in the type of surface throughout the course. He was surprised the error was so large because an error this big would nullify any records on a certified road course of this length.

We all left convinced that tape measuring is the best way.

coachy wrote:

...if you can provide the link on how to measure and certify a cross country course.

You've repeatedly stated the RL course is accurate, yet here you're stating there isn't an official method of measuring and certifying a cross country course, so are you admitting that the course at RL might not be correctly measured and, therefore, it could be short (or long)?!

That said, others have referenced the USATF manual that addresses non-paved courses. Jones counter, steel tape. Neither of which were used to measure the RL course.

Again, if RL wants to make the claim that their course is the fastest in America, then the responsibility is on them to hire independent USATF certified course measurers to determine the length of the course. Until that is done, there will be skeptics and rightfully so.

Your basis of the course being short is that too many people ran PRs. Nearly everyone PRs at Arcadia on a track mid-season/ Imagine if Runninglane was run 2 months ago and every kid got slower after that. You would certainly argue that there is no way that kids would all PR at the same meet especially in the middle of the season. So using that logic, I have determined that Arcadia is short. Until such time that someone measures it with me watching, I am not accepting any of the PRs for the guys listed above.

But they don't care about skeptics. Nobody does. The same few of you arguing that there are no XC records are also arguing that the course needs to be remeasured. For what?

Oh, and for those wondering how this compared to the 1971 version of the course which had changed, and which we recreated using old satellite photos ( the path in the grass could be seen clearly) as well as our memory ( two of us witnessed races in the 1970s) ... the two courses basically came out the same within a reasonable margin of error. So Derrick may or may not have run faster than Virgin, but for XC purposes Virgin kept his record until Methner broke it.

Also we calculated that if the people who set up the course using the center-path method had assumed a path width of 12 feet, then it would measure almost exactly 3.000 miles. We tried to find the people who set up the course, but failed.

The lesson is, when someone does something spectacular, measure it with a tape.

red flag wrote:

Heard a report of a coach there who wheeled it as 75 meters short. Whatever the distance, can we just stop with the emphasis on times in xc already???

Ya xc times are not comparable. Even the same course can be different if the grass is mowed shorter than the previous year, or if the ground is dryer than the previous year.

The only things you can truly compare is track times. If all of these guys are running 8:30's and 8:40's on the track then ya I think we can say all these high schoolers are super legit. But if a bunch of them are only running 8:55-9:05 then I'm not thinking they're so great.

Your logic doesn’t make sense because it’s a track meet. I can guarantee the school can tell you who built the track and when, and their methodology for measuring the course as 400 meters. Running lane can’t say the same.

Also, Arcadia holds multiple meets a year where kids don’t PR at all or by large margins.

None of the Arcadia coaches would practice on their home track if they knew it was short.

The comparison you’re making is a complete joke

Are you new here? They already ran 8:40s as sophomores and juniors.

I nominate one or both of the BroJos and David Katz! If MileSplit, Garmin, or some well off Lets Runners will cover my trip I will come down to help with the process.