In over 30 I never have. Come to think of it never in any race of any distance. When an acquaintance missed two in Boston that raised my eyebrows. But maybe the technology does that sometimes? wondering.
I haven't, but I could have missed one in a HM. There was a midway timing mat that was maybe just a meter wide off to one side of the road. There was a short chute leading into it that was a bit wider, but it was easy to overlook until I was right on top of it and it would have been easy to miss it.
I don't know how you miss a timing mat in Boston. They only thing I can think of is a chip failing to read.
I "missed" the finish mat at a 15km. Start, 5k, and 10k worked fine. I told the timing company my watch time, which they confirmed the exact finish time with their own finish line video, and got my finish added to the official results. Super easy.
I know that's not the same as skipping mats in the middle of a longer race, but it goes to show that the chips don't always get picked up by the mats.
In over 30 I never have. Come to think of it never in any race of any distance. When an acquaintance missed two in Boston that raised my eyebrows. But maybe the technology does that sometimes? wondering.
I've done around 25 and I want to say there was one I didn't get a time at one of the middle mats. Never looked into seeing if it was just me or everyone though as I had my GPS data for splits anyway. Boston would not be the ideal one to try to cheat on if they were obviously, especially with two mats if they weren't consecutive.
I've noticed races over the years, not necessarily marathons, where the live results didn't pick up runners that were definitely not cheating (visible in lead pack) or were just totally screwed up. I want to say that a lot of it was in cross country. Quality of the race timing company plays a factor, but also the tech isn't perfect.
I raced a 10K race that the mats malfunctioned. Since people took more than 1/2 a dozen 35mm photos of me on the course, we agreed I raced in 40:10 to 40:15 range. My official time is listed in that range.
One of those road races that raced 5K & 10K simultaneously. Meet official or officials moved the female winner of 10K to 5K. Again I proved with a few 35mm photos the actual 10K female winner.
I ran Indy a couple weeks ago and missed the 30k mat. It was in a weird S bend with a slight downhill. And it didn't take up the whole width of the road.
When I later looked up a lot of the runners I knew in the race, a lot of them missed that time check.
I think that's the only time I've missed one, though.
seriously how do you miss a mat,I've only ran in 5 and 10k's, those mats were always under a 'finish' line banner, is it that much different in a marathon ?