How short was the Marathon Project course

Mr. Katz does not measure short. Take it to the bank.

Do not discount the perfect weather, flat course, and super shoes.

David Katz reads the message board. I bet he’ll get a good laugh at this post.

If I wasn't so tired working this event I would be laughing!

I did the initial measurement of the loop on Thursday afternoon along with another top World Athletics "A" measurer - Joe Galope of Arizona. I measured the loop to be 6876.48 m and Joe was within 0.50m of my measurement. We calibrated the Jones Counter immediately before and immediately after the measurement to minimize the fluctuations of the calibration constant due to the variation of temperature out in the desert. Once we knew the length of the loop it was simple to measure the out and back legs for the start and finish.

Split points were measured twice on Friday.

On race day, I personally placed every mile, km , halfway, 800 to go, 400 to go signs.

Note - 1

When I first agreed to do the measurement I spent many hours measuring the course on Google Earth but the street views didn't show any good landmarks to easily record the location of the split points. However there are light poles down the center of the road - but without any numbers or codes. I solved the problem by numbering every light pole starting with the one in the first "round about turn" as # 1 all the way to the last pole (just prior to the second round about turn) - # 59. Then I numbered the poles in the start/finish straight.

Note -2

Except for the round about turns at each end of the course there are very few tangents to negotiate. Regardless, I painted blue lines at the various points where the course cut through a turning lane to identify the shortest path.

Note-3

I following the men's a women's lead pack on various laps and it blew me away how close to the actually measured line the runners were running. To me it looked more like they were running 200m - hugging the lane line.

Boom!

Many thanks for your time, hard work and input David.

R

D.Katz wrote:an explanation

Sounds very precise.

10:02am wrote:

D.Katz wrote:an explanation

Sounds very precise.

You mean accurate, not precise

Actually both!

Accuracy reflects how close a measurement is to a known or accepted value, while precision reflects how reproducible measurements are, even if they are far from the accepted value. Measurements that are both precise and accurate are repeatable and very close to true values.

D.Katz wrote:

Actually both!

Accuracy reflects how close a measurement is to a known or accepted value, while precision reflects how reproducible measurements are, even if they are far from the accepted value. Measurements that are both precise and accurate are repeatable and very close to true values.

As a HS science teacher, reading this makes me a fall a little bit in love with you.

Awesome! I've wanted to get course measurement for a long time. Thanks for Marathon Project Insight.

I expected this post. Letsrun is getting more toxic everyday. This sounds like the same people who still can't believe that the Runninglane course was accurate because 32 guys broke 15 and a girl ran 15:58. People are getting faster. Courses are designed to be faster. Shoes are better.

No, I mean he was precise in how he measured it.

terminology wrote:

10:02am wrote:

Sounds very precise.

You mean accurate, not precise

My goodness, gtfo.

It was just as accurate as the RunningLane course. Most of us know that both were properly measured and are accurate. A few angry people will believe that both courses are short.

10 minute PRS, so it was more than a mile short? Sorry you're slow.

The results from this past weekend were no surprise.

1. Perfect weather

2. Extremely flat couse

3. Very deep field, it was almost a rematch of olympic trials (like over half of the top 20), plus a few other really good runners fro other countries plus a healthy Droddy since he was hurt for the trials.

4. Multiple pace groups that make sense for our top Americans

5. Very few races this year so everyone spent their full buildups on this race.

How many guys in the race have run 28:00-28:30 in the 10k (or a guy like Cam Levins who has run 27:20's)? These weren't a bunch of slow guys that ran the race yesterday, if Bill Rodgers can run a 2:09 marathon back in the 1970's and he was never able to run under 28 in a 10k, then why can't some of this group of 15+ runners with low 28 or sub 28 10k pr's run 2:09 or 2:10/2:11? Ya'll are just bitter.

I'm sure it was "measured" accurate, but doesn't mean the runners didn't cut it short somehow.

I mean really, what's more likely. A ton of different runners with different shoes and different training backgrounds suddenly pully off A LOT of prs in a year where training has been less than optimal an there are few tune up races.....OR the course was short/cut short.

You admit you are tired.. when tire

laugh all you want, but the truth will come out.

Short by a full mile, homes!

Faster than you wrote:

I expected this post. Letsrun is getting more toxic everyday. This sounds like the same people who still can't believe that the Runninglane course was accurate because 32 guys broke 15 and a girl ran 15:58. People are getting faster. Courses are designed to be faster. Shoes are better.

Toxic? are you new hear.

I mean think about it if you had Kenyan race with so many prs or an Ethiopian race with so many prs. How many here would believe the result?

But since its a bunch of white Americans we should never question an unrealistic result?

It's good to question. Damn these millennials who are so afraid that any criticism is 'toxic" or legit questions are "bad for the sport" need to grow a pair.

Yeah totally seems short