Accuracy of Road Roace Courses During the '70s and '80s

mr sarcasm wrote:

How many tangents can you cut on an out and back course?

The wheel was invented a few centuries ago. Just becasue some Smith guy put his name on one doesn't mean they couldn't accurately measure things before that.

Plenty, unless it's a perfectly straight out and back.

Someone walking with a wheel is likely the most inaccurate meaurement known to man (current and pre-historic) over anything with a turn. Since I've remeasured a good dozen or more foot pushing wheel measured courses and not a sinlge one has been the advertised distance, I'd say htat method doesn't work.

Defining the process to use the wheel was what made things accurate, not the use of the wheel.

dukerdog wrote:

No. There are lots of evidence and lots of reasons to suggest a bias towards short courses.

fred wrote:

Yeah, all the courses were short. And there weren't any

guys busting their ass every day in training.

And Benji didn't train in double sweats at 95F, and Frank

Shorter didn't run 155 mile weeks in the Florida heat.

I wasn't trying to make any kind of statement about people being faster or slower in the 70-80's, or even a statement about courses being less accurate in the 70-80's.

My statement was only that most inaccurate courses (regardless of the decade) are short. And here's the biggest reason why:

How many races are you aware of that people suspect, year after year, are longer than advertised? I know of none. Races that are longer than advertised either get fixed or die. People don't return to races where they ran slow times.

Races that are shorter than advertised get a reputation as a PR course and thrive. It's survival of the "fittest," so to speak.

That's not true. Falmouth was always 7.1 miles until road repairs after a winter storm altered the course, it was then that they re-measured the course at 7.0 miles, at which time they lengthened the course to maintain the traditional 7.1 mile distance. They recently decided to go back to the original finishline for some elbow room so the course now stands at 7.0 miles.

JIMG said:

As the person who certified Falmouth (for the first time in the race's history) a few years ago, I can tell you that the distance came out to 7.0 for the finish line they've been using for many years (not "recently"). The finish DID indeed change many years ago, but not by 1/10th of a mile. I would doubt the course was ever 7.1 miles.

We heard about Falmouth never being as advertised but it's a place to place road race with no connection to a standard distance. Wasn't it started as a Bar to Bar race from Woods Hole to Falmouth? NYMarathon on the other hand should be up to snuff because it's a race of a well defined standard International distance.

Your Falmouth PR was just that a Falmouth PR you did not try to equate that result to the Bampton to Triverton race in England you went and ran Bampton and that was your BtoT PR.

There were a lot of certified courses back then throught TAC. I don't know what the measuring standard process was. Does anyone here know what the procedure was for measuring back then to obtain certification?

The answer can be found at http://www.rrtc.net . Little has changed in measuring standards since TAC days.

The problem is, even the most accurate system can be wrong if the measurer messes up. I certified a 5K course about 8 years ago with a Jones Counter. I was meticulous about following the rules even down to the air pressure in my tires. Ironically, the course goes by Alan Jones house. But, I can see someone getting it wrong, not measuring tangents right, weaving a little to throw the measurement off, even cheating to give your racec a fast course. Who would know? You fill out the paperwork and it gets approved or not.

But, to agree with some of the earlier posts, I remember people drivinga course in their car and telling us it was 6.2 miles. On the other hand, I have checked out certified courses with a GPS map on my computer and some have been on to the hundreth of a mile and others off by a tenth or so.

And what would be your solution to this 'problem'? True enough final signatories don't know for sure a measurer has done everything according to the book w/every notation & path taken on every race route just by looking at an app. Maybe what RRTC should do is put the following at the top of every app: 'Measure every course as if a record was going to be set on your course, necessitating somebody else coming in to check your work for accuracy via a validation.'

You know, put the fear of the Great & Allmighty RRTC in folks!

Per GPS numbers...oh man, let's not go down that road.

I don't have a solution. I'm not critisizing, just saying that I can see where the problems could occur. It would be easy to mess up without being negligent. I certified a 5K course and it took a few hours- I started very early to avoid major temperature changes which would effect tire pressure, etc.

I personally think that most certifiers are honest and try to do it right. I also think that most courses are close enough so that we cold keep records and PR's.

Other mistakes can happen with a perfectly well measured course:

I was once in a race near Syracuse- 5K, the starter and a volunteer had an argeument- as we were on the line- about where the turn around was (out and back course). As it turns out, the starter was wrong by 150 meters. They didn't figure it out until the race was over and everyone was talking about how their two mile split was wayyyyy too slow and their first mile was fine. 300 freaking meters is close to a minute for many people in a 5K. I ran close to my PR that day- would have broken it by a ton if they wre correct. Wow, that was 20 years ago and I'll never forget it.

M Cordi wrote:

It would be easy to mess up without being negligent.

No, if you mess up while measuring a course for certification, that's negligence. There are extenuating circumstances...particularly winding routes can be a pain in the ass to measure along the SPR but, in the end, that's the measurers responsibility to get right.

The second scenario you present occurs everywhere in America every weekend, w/out fail. That darn human factor.

Tangents in XC races like this must be a real problem!!

Even TAC certified courses have been changed..Wasn't it in the late 80's where elevation became an issue on many TAC certified courses?

Many that were formerly "certified" were not anymore after the elevation issued surfaced....

Quick primer on elevation & separation info for certified courses:

For records purposes, courses can't drop more than 1 meter per kilometer of distance and the start has to be w/in 10% of the race distance from the finish (ex: 1 kilometer in a 10 km race).

These rules have been in effect since the late 80's. The standards nudged some races to bring their courses w/in the tolerances for records...while many stayed the way they were like Boston, etc.

Courses didn't lose certification if they weren't record-quality. Records set on non record-quality courses are still tabulated but are regarded as inferior to those that meet the above standards.

plu wrote:

Even TAC certified courses have been changed..Wasn't it in the late 80's where elevation became an issue on many TAC certified courses?

Many that were formerly "certified" were not anymore after the elevation issued surfaced....

Elevation was always and issue and it wasn't "many" it was few. Almost all races start and finish at the same place.

Yes, Sell, Meb, hall are training as hard as the 80's guys

Maybe not as hard as Salazar, Clayton , Nenow, Cram.

Race #2 Miricle Run 10 Miler&5km Windsor, OntarioThis race is 10.8 to 11.1 miles.

Scott, was the Detroit Marathon accurate from 78 to 82?

There were about 3 mile markers for the 1st mile in front

of the hospital, all just a few feet apart.

Man, I hope those early FP Marathon courses were accurate! I ran in '79 & '80, running 2:29, then 2:28. I'm pretty sure they were certified by Al Phillips w/assistance from Dr Ed K. I know nothing about any discrepancies, etc in those early years. I first measured the FP Marathon in '84...and every subsequent variation since. I hope the '07 measurement is my last one in Detroit.

(There'll be discussions about the '07 course on Tues).

I have noticed the same thing - but I wouldn't necessarily discount all the times. Here's an example from about 1984.

when I first looked at the results I couldn't believe 1) how many fast guys there were and 2) who some of them were = guys who were toward the back of that pack were not considered great runners by any measure.

Where I am from we used to have a big summer 8k...today if someone broke 26:00 that would be rare - back then we had 25 guys from our state alone do it (legitimately)...some well below 25. In totaly i think there were 60 runners under 26:00 in 1984. Today same race - had 2 guys break 26:00 2 years ago and 0 last year.

Clearly that fact that 25+ guys could go sub 26:00 in the mid 80's (and this was on a certified course) vs. today when seldom do more than 3-4 (if that) break 26:00 says alot about the change in quality over the years.

So the courses may not be the reason for so many fast times. Even if the courses were a little short in the 70's those guy ran (and trained like the way you do = 100 mile week etc). Today it seems not many run or run very hard + there just aren't as many doing it. the few runners we do have are mostly joggers.

The responses made by Malmo in this thread illustrate exactly why I fricken' love him.