Foot Locker admits to adding 70 meters to South Regional course

Thread Follower wrote:

Are we sure that the Jones counter guy road the exact same course as the tape method guys? How many rides did the Jones counter guy do?

Do you recall the tape length that was used?

I remember only one measurement being made with the Jones counter. He followed the trail of flags laid down by the tape measurement, as did all other measurements. The tape was either 50 or 60 meters.

Thread Follower wrote:

To be within 20 feet over a three mile course is very accurate. The difference easily could have been variation in speed since the Jones Counter is not accurate with speed changes; or errors with the tape on the turns, which would be easy to do. Either way, both are impressively accurate measurements for a cross country course.

Actually 20 feet would be terrible.

The Jones Counter is accurate regardless of speed.

However slippage becomes more of an issue with speed, so it's important to

keep a low speed, and to not use the brake on that tire, to avoid any slippage.

Perhaps a tire with spikes would be good to use on a cross country course. :)

So if someone shows up to Detweiler and right after that State Meet uses a surveyor's wheel and comes up with 4790, 4791, 4793 what would be your take on that? Let it be known that a 50m steel tape would also be brought along as well for calibration purposes.

J.R. wrote:

Thread Follower wrote:

To be within 20 feet over a three mile course is very accurate. The difference easily could have been variation in speed since the Jones Counter is not accurate with speed changes; or errors with the tape on the turns, which would be easy to do. Either way, both are impressively accurate measurements for a cross country course.

Actually 20 feet would be terrible.

The Jones Counter is accurate regardless of speed.

However slippage becomes more of an issue with speed, so it's important to

keep a low speed, and to not use the brake on that tire, to avoid any slippage.

Perhaps a tire with spikes would be good to use on a cross country course. :)

You better reread the USATF measuring protocol with a Jones Counter

That would be impressive precision based on what I saw with the wheel. If you could couple that with consistent calibration numbers going both ways on the starting straight and the Route 29 straight, then I would say you have a method worth considering. If you can't get consistent numbers going both ways for calibration, then all you know is that you have good precision with unknown accuracy.

Are saying you have done that? Or are you saying that you intend to try that next year?

Also, I'd be impressed by anyone who can finish three passes on Detweiller in November after all the races have finished and before the sun goes down. All this talk about multiple passes sounds great in theory until you're out there dragging your ass around for 3, 6, 9, 12 miles. It doesn't take long before the words "That's good enough" start to creep into the back of your head, even though you KNOW you'll have to face the kind of day I'm having right now where people will imply that you left something obvious on the table. If you get 4790 and 4791 going opposite ways on your first two passes, then I guarantee you will NOT do a third pass, and I hope I'm there to say I told you so!

Nope, didn't get those measurements, but think I would be consistently close in three attempts. Would think it would be best to calibrate on the two main surfaces, then take measurements from far left box & far right box - to first turn - then if these numbers both jive measure the whole course. A second overall measurement could be from center of starting line and if that distance to the first turn falls in line with the first measurements I would think I could duplicate a reading very close to the first overall reading. If not, we do it again. Two hours tops,

Thread Follower wrote:

Remember there is a difference between straight and flat.

I recall the blue line not being the SPR in Atlanta, but just a course guideline.

Agreed, but a course like Mc Alpine has significant straight and flat stretches. The course is practically a track with a hill in the middle.

As far as the blue line being the SPR the presentation I went to said that the blue line was the SPR on the long tangents which is why the used the laser to set the line that the bikes followed. Admittedly that was 20 years ago, but I do remember coverage of the women's marathon when much was made of the leader not following the blue line and thus running farther than necessary.

Pete Riegel's report in Measurement News implies that the blue line was intended to be the SPR.

DiscoGary wrote:

People don't know about the process of calibrating the Jones counter for road races. They would feel a lot better about certified distances if they knew. You should go through it. USATF Certified means something.

The course measurement workshop handout is a nice overview of the process, and it's easier to go through than the full procedures guide.

My old write up is still AWOL, but while it was a shorter summary this seminar handout is quite good (in my estimation).

Keith Stone wrote:

DiscoGary wrote:

People don't know about the process of calibrating the Jones counter for road races. They would feel a lot better about certified distances if they knew. You should go through it. USATF Certified means something.

The course measurement workshop handout is a nice overview of the process, and it's easier to go through than the full procedures guide.

http://www.rrtc.net/files/Measurement_Seminar_2014_ed2.pdf

My old write up is still AWOL, but while it was a shorter summary this seminar handout is quite good (in my estimation).

I found this in the info that was provided:

Measurements must be within 0.08% of

each other (4 meters over 5 km distance).

is this proper math?????

It's completely mind blowing to me that this thread has gotten to 170+ messages. How much talk can there be about how to measure a course??????

Dazed and Confused Again wrote:

I found this in the info that was provided:

Measurements must be within 0.08% of

each other (4 meters over 5 km distance).

is this proper math?????

Correct, specifically it works like this:

working constant = 19033 (number of clicks per mile based on calibration)

Start to finish click count #1: 59133 / 19033 (3.10686702 miles)

Start to finish click count #2: 59116 / 19033 (3.105973835 miles)

Difference between #1 and #2 = 17

Divide that by length #1 (59133): 0.00028749

Is that number less than .0008? Yes

Baffled wrote:

It's completely mind blowing to me that this thread has gotten to 170+ messages. How much talk can there be about how to measure a course??????

Clearly you don't hang around measurers or timers much.

I do not, but can imagine how rowdy of a time that would be.

Baffled wrote:

It's completely mind blowing to me that this thread has gotten to 170+ messages. How much talk can there be about how to measure a course??????

Hopefully a few people actually picked up some pointers on how to properly measure a course and we will have a few more accurate courses in the future,

Getting back to the original issue of FL adding 70m to the South Regional course. How much of that might have been because of the recent revision in the NFHS measuring rule that went away from measuring the center of the course to now wanting courses to be measured along the shortest possible route?

Survey Solutions, LLC wrote:

Getting back to the original issue of FL adding 70m to the South Regional course. How much of that might have been because of the recent revision in the NFHS measuring rule that went away from measuring the center of the course to now wanting courses to be measured along the shortest possible route?

Honestly I am not sure we have even the faintest amount of information about the course to allow us to speculate. Who measured it previously, and in what year, using what method?

Who measured it this year and using what method?

We do have a guy on the thread telling us he measured it. I was unclear if he was claiming to have done the "official" measurement, whatever that means.

Survey Solutions, LLC wrote:

Getting back to the original issue of FL adding 70m to the South Regional course. How much of that might have been because of the recent revision in the NFHS measuring rule that went away from measuring the center of the course to now wanting courses to be measured along the shortest possible route?

Are you suggesting that they lengthened the course so that the new course would measure the same as the old one under the middle-path rule? I sure hope they didn't do that, and I hope they don't do that at Detweiller.

DiscoGary wrote:

Survey Solutions, LLC wrote:

Getting back to the original issue of FL adding 70m to the South Regional course. How much of that might have been because of the recent revision in the NFHS measuring rule that went away from measuring the center of the course to now wanting courses to be measured along the shortest possible route?

Are you suggesting that they lengthened the course so that the new course would measure the same as the old one under the middle-path rule? I sure hope they didn't do that, and I hope they don't do that at Detweiller.

From a historic perspective, I agree. It would be nice to hear about what really happened there.

Awesome