hey Zach, great race and congrats on the well-earned OTQ!
I'm curious if you have a line to the RD and how you'd feel about inquiring on something re: the course to him. Hasn't been touched on here in the thread and I'm reluctant to bring it up, given the inevitable negativity and tone.
I also ran Bayshore this year and last, and once in the past before the course change. Hence my personal interest.
Maybe I’m wrong or misremembering, but like I said in a previous post I honestly remember running on the right side of the road for much of that section and still got 26.15 on my GPS. If you weren’t one of the leaders it honestly would have been very difficult to run on the left side of the road for that section because of oncoming runners, and yet we’ve consistently seen people say all their friends who ran had GPS distances < 26.2. I just don’t understand why people in this thread are refusing to believe it couldn’t be a GPS issue.
Again, like I’ve also said before, I’m not saying it’s impossible that the course is short or that everyone ran the course incorrectly; but based on what I’ve read I think there is enough plausible reason to believe it was a GPS issue. And for a USATF certified course to be short or for it to be so easily cut short by running it incorrectly (across several years by the way, as people have been reporting distances < 26.2 as far back as 2017) I kind of need all plausible reason it couldn’t be a GPS issue to be proven wrong. Basically, you need to prove a certified course is short; not the other way around.
you've made your position clear, in obvious disregard for FACTs.
Why do you need to repeat it over and over again. It was NOT GPS.
People need to also realize that the the current course is only two years old. There was a road wash-out near the turnaround prior to last years race so the the full turnaround at 13.1 moved closer and they added a section that only the marathoners run and the half do not to make up the distance difference. It was re-certified of course.
I’ve made my position clear that I really just want the truth. If I ran on a short course I’d like to know it. But the fact remains that there hasn’t been overwhelming evidence to disprove that it couldn’t have been a GPS issue, which I personally think needs to be the case before anyone comes out and assumes the course was short or that runners did not run the course correctly was the cause of GPS distances coming up short.
Like most people, however, I really just want the truth here, so I’m hopeful that maybe the race directors and/or USATF can help clear the air.
I’ll be honest that when I first saw this thread I instantly assumed the course was in fact short. But once I saw that GPS distances for the marathon here have been showing up < 26.2 for several years now (including before the course change last year) I’ve since been more inclined to believe it’s been a GPS issue until proven otherwise. What I’m mostly curious about is how come this topic hasn’t been discussed before if GPS distances have been short for a while now.
I’ve made my position clear that I really just want the truth. If I ran on a short course I’d like to know it. But the fact remains that there hasn’t been overwhelming evidence to disprove that it couldn’t have been a GPS issue, which I personally think needs to be the case before anyone comes out and assumes the course was short or that runners did not run the course correctly was the cause of GPS distances coming up short.
Like most people, however, I really just want the truth here, so I’m hopeful that maybe the race directors and/or USATF can help clear the air.
I'll answer for you: the course was most likely measured correctly, so if you ran the course as designed (staying on the right side of the road during the described sections), you ran the full distance. If you didn't (went to left side of the road to run tangents), you did not.
It's not going to be the same answer for everyone unless it comes out that the course was mismeasured, which would be a surprise
I'm the guy who won the race (if you believe anonymous posters on LRC). Now you can reply to me directly and ask all those questions about which you are assuming answers.
(1) I ran the shortest possible course available to me within the bounds of legitimacy communicated. That's because I race when I run, so I do whatever I can within the rules to win races. Any of you run XC? You get it.
(2) It was very cool that Bayshore decided to pinch their nose and swallow USATF's money grab to sanction the course this year--anyone have a guess how many other marathons in Michigan are sanctioned? As such, some runners did indeed travel to the race for that purpose, but only a handful. Bayshore is a local/regional event that happens to be a fairly fast course. Personally, I ran the race because we were vacationing with family in the area and love the event.
(3) Prior to this year, the course record was 2:19 or so. To some, that will suggest that there was something anomalous about this instance. That makes sense, as the fact remains that many fast runners have run the course over the years. For my part, I ran 2:20 last year in what amounted to a rough closing 10k, so I felt like I left something out there. I also ran 2:18 pre-super shoes in 2015. This race was actually the first time I have run a marathon in the super shoes, and in lab testing, I've demonstrated as much as a 5-7% efficiency improvement with the shoes. So to say I could run a fair bit faster in almost the same conditions with the addition of those shoes makes sense, and to say based on my current training that I could run 2 minutes faster than my 2015 best for no other reason than that I was wearing the shoes also makes sense.
(4) So the question here seems to be fairly simple: Is it acceptable to honor the results of a race where runners (3 total--2 guys, 1 girl) achieved a qualification in circumstances that may have allowed for running a touch under regulated distance? To be exact, at most .5% reduction (0.15 of 26.2). At that point, the need to call into question the integrity of the event or accomplishment based on that possible margin of error is probably unbalanced. I don't drink caffeine. If I would have had caffeine before and during the race, could that have provided a 0.5% performance benefit? This event gave athletes 4 tables for their bottles--miles 7, 10, 16, and 19 ish. Would bottle drops every 3 miles allow for a possible 0.5% improvement?
I applaud the efforts of Noah and Hannah in their races and qualifications and very much hope they are able to take full advantage of this very cool opportunity. I'm not much sure I care whether they had some slight advantage in doing so by running this race vs. others. They both had to do that solo--not like a CIM or something where you can fall asleep in a pack for 26 miles and wake up with an OTQ. It seems to me the effort here is making much of a thing that matters little. Then again, we are on the World Famous Message Boards, after all, so I suppose that's the point.
Still, it was tons of fun! A trip to Orlando doesn't change that either way for me, but I hope Noah and Hannah seeing this thread feel no less about their incredible accomplishment for the words and sentiments shared here... better still, I suppose I hope they don't see it at all. Either way, they were awesome!
Since you said you are open to questions:
Were you suspicious at all of the distance after either this year or last year’s race?
How do you think most other runners knew to stay on the right side of the course?
Apologies for caring about whether the course I set a PR in Saturday was truly short and attempting to provide a balanced perspective to all the “course was short, next topic” comments here
Well for those who ran you should have gotten a survey so please complete the survey and mention the distance discrepancy. If nothing else maybe next year there will be better instructions/markings if it indeed was due to not staying to the right side of the road.
You can’t run on the right side because it’s filled with half marathoners. So all the fast guys have to stay on left side that’s why we are short. The half started 15mins late this year. I was in left side of road due to so many walkers and slow half marathon people for last 10 miles.
Also in first 10 miles both sides are free and it’s easy to cut tangents.
Let’s be honest here. We all love a short course rather than a long one, especially in those podunk 5Ks where measurements are likely to be off anyways. Looks good on your Athlinks! And I don’t post to Strava so I don’t care.
If you’ve ever ran a long course (I once ran a “10k” that measured 6.53 miles and there were no mile markers on the course) you know awful it is, as you start pushing/kicking way too early and ended up dying out in the last half mile.
So congrats to the winner of Bayshore. He beat his competition and that’s all that matters. It’s not like he hopped on the back of the course biker and took a few miles off.
I’ve made my position clear that I really just want the truth. If I ran on a short course I’d like to know it. But the fact remains that there hasn’t been overwhelming evidence to disprove that it couldn’t have been a GPS issue, which I personally think needs to be the case before anyone comes out and assumes the course was short or that runners did not run the course correctly was the cause of GPS distances coming up short.
Like most people, however, I really just want the truth here, so I’m hopeful that maybe the race directors and/or USATF can help clear the air.
I'll answer for you: the course was most likely measured correctly, so if you ran the course as designed (staying on the right side of the road during the described sections), you ran the full distance. If you didn't (went to left side of the road to run tangents), you did not.
It's not going to be the same answer for everyone unless it comes out that the course was mismeasured, which would be a surprise
This ^ Or maybe the course was measured a while ago and it turned out the calibration was slightly off. The fact is, most marathons by GPS seem to go long, but for this marathon, it seems like it's almost always short. So unless GPS is accurate for every other marathon in the world except for this one... I don't think you can say "GPS was wrong" for this one.
I think I can speak for most people here and say that I would have loved to run it this year and run .2 miles less have GPS be wrong
Suspicious: no. I treat GPS like a mild curiosity, and when it's off, I think nothing of it. After all, the simple difference in running straight lines vs. drifting around etc. accounts for enough discrepancy that it isn't really worth wondering about. Have you seen DCRainMaker's GPS comparisons between watches? He will wear 6 watches at one time and show you the GPS data... just not something I consider authoritative on precise measurements.
Most runners knew the course: I knew it as well--that racers ought to run on the right side of the road--because of the other runners on the course. I had no inkling that there was any cause for concern if a runner drifted to the inside of curves. Also, I don't recall ever consciously thinking "I'm going to run on the other side of the road because it will be faster even though I shouldn't." As I've stated previously, I have a firmly ingrained instinct to run the shortest possible course available to me. Even then, for very nearly the entire time, there were runners coming at me on the left side of the road, so if I were to estimate how much time I actually spent on the left side vs. the middle, it would be quite a bit less than the theoretically possible amount of distance.
One of the most notable missing links in the entire argument about the runners cutting this short is the fact that you are all assuming the runners must have been optimizing every moment of the race. There is a long list of reasons why that isn't likely, not least of which is the fact that there is just as much photo evidence of us running right next to the other runners in the middle. But hard data aside, the bottle tables were on the far right side, and navigating to those required not only being on that side, but also weaving through the half marathon runners who were all on that side. It's probably no more than a miniscule contribution, but I contend that the opposite contribution was also minimal. Overall, the entire argument here hinges on a premise that is so particular that I just find it statistically unlikely.
Namely this: you claim that the abundant proof of concern is in the fact that all the GPS data from runners is short enough to raise concern AND that photo evidence of runners running in restricted areas further proves the point. But we've already confirmed that a great many runners followed only the righthand side of the course and yet still ended with just about the same distance discrepancy. The most logical conclusion is usually the right one, and it remains true that the most logical conclusion is that the GPS data is skewed and that whatever potentially minimal advantage a runner gained by small amounts of time cutting the curves shorter, that advantage was likely returned in fairly equal measure in other instances.
Remember the numbers--my previous note about a 0.5% advantage was a liberal estimation. In reality, it is likely more around 0.3%. That's margin of error territory.
The rule with such deliberations, as always, is that you will never convince your opposition to change their mind, but as stated, I hope those who ran it and are seeing this thread see enough clarity here to feel justified in their great performances and dismiss these narrow criticisms.
It can be a great performance and a short course. Those 2 things are not mutually exclusive. 1. Great Race you deserve the awards and money that was earned on that day. 2. I’m sorry that the course was short and therefore you do not qualify for the Olympic Trials.
No one in this thread has done any criticizing of the outstanding performances.
What a bunch of trolls! Most of you probably could not run a marathon, let alone be competitive. My garmin said 26.18, I ran as many tangents as possible (who wouldn't) and PR'd by 40 seconds. Its a gps issue, stop trying to be a bunch of asses trolling for a fight and get out on the road!
If the road was open the whole way, why wasn't the course measured for tangents? It seems very odd that the course restrictions on miles 5-21 were in place at all. Usually in such circumstances, there is some kind of physical barrier to keep athletes on the course. I completely understand the leaders running the tangents just by instinct, but to also avoid the half runners. All of this should have been worked out by the race organizers and measurers. Yes it's the athlete's responsibility to know the course, but if accurate course details are unknown, athletes run the course presented.
If the road was open the whole way, why wasn't the course measured for tangents? It seems very odd that the course restrictions on miles 5-21 were in place at all. Usually in such circumstances, there is some kind of physical barrier to keep athletes on the course. I completely understand the leaders running the tangents just by instinct, but to also avoid the half runners. All of this should have been worked out by the race organizers and measurers. Yes it's the athlete's responsibility to know the course, but if accurate course details are unknown, athletes run the course presented.
Despite your handle name, I actually agree with your points.
It was clearly a poorly laid out race. It should be set up in a way where it is very clear how people should run it (for example, put out cones in the middle of the road) and that they should be able run it that way without having to weave around half marathon runners. The current layout seems crazy
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