Philly RnR Half Short?

devils advocate432 wrote:

this is ridiculous wrote:

I can continue to add to the list if you still doubt it:

Kenneth Foster: PR 65:32 ran 66:09

Gian Paul Caccia: PR 64:46 ran 66:03

Abebe Yimer ran 1:17:43 for a 25K race in 2010 (US champs) that converts to going through the half marathon right around 1:05:30 and he ran 66:37.

Sage Canaday ran 65:51 at disney half ran 66:42 here.

Some people PR'ed, sure. But like I said temps were great and competition was great. Look at the PR's of the top 50 or so, pretty legit.

without knowing much about this thread or course, I can 100% tell you that the above poster is 100% trying to defend their "big pr" by only picking a small set of data. Try being objective jerk.

You know nothing about this thread and it showed by your lame attempt to be a smartass. The post you are replying to was in answer to a poster that listed a few people that ran 2 or 3 minutes FASTER than their PRs. They used this information to conclude or prove the course was short. The above post added objectivity by listing examples of people that DID NOT PR.

If you are going to start a post with 'I know nothing about this thread' you should be asking a question not making a statement.

Boston's Run to Remember Half Marathon (certified) ended up significantly short a few years ago when the lead police motorcycle took a wrong turn through Boston. Missed the entire first water stop!

Here's their press release apologizing for the mistake:

http://www.bostonsruntoremember.com/boston/press/press0509.htm

And I knew it was short pretty much right away due to my Garmin reading being low and everyone in my group PR'ing on a hot day. My Garmin was not sync'd with the mile markers for the entire course after mile 1.

So you're saying the second mile was short? What was your mile split for the second mile?

Or are you saying that every mile after the first (12 in all) were mismarked? Which is it?

sack of tomatoes wrote:

So you're saying the second mile was short? What was your mile split for the second mile?

Or are you saying that every mile after the first (12 in all) were mismarked? Which is it?

The dude also said it was hot day. Clearly a troll as are most on this thread. We've been thoroughly hoodwinked.

The course was certified by one of the most thorough and well respected Certifiers in the country. It looks like he certified the course four times (all in the middle of the night). This course was certified using the shortest possible route method, using the Jones counter on a calibrated bicycle.

SPR means that the full width of the roads were used with no restrictions.

The R"n'R course (and old PRD course) should be run taking the tangents on West River Drive and Kelly Drive. Most elite runners have been aware of this for years. It is surprising how much distance is added when not running the tangents.

Certification and details are posted on the USATF website - Rock'n'Roll Philadelphia 1/2 Marathon

Exactly...the 2nd mile was noticeably short and it therefore screwed up all the subsequent mile markers on the course. When I hit each of the course's mile markers my watch was about 0.1 miles behind everytime.

Not trolling. Read the link to the press release. This happened and there was a similar debate for a day or two until they issued the press release. Not saying this is what happened with the RNR but just pointing out that certification does not always ensure 100% accuracy.

I still laugh when I picture all the volunteers with their water ready to go at the first stop waiting for all the runners to come by...and waiting...and waiting...!

As someone who measures courses, there is one other possibility I can think of which would explain why everyone who ran and is claiming the Philly course was short but cannot point to a certain mile being short or an error in course setup. This would be highly unlikely so I wouldn't put much stock in it, but it is a possibility. It is possible that an error was made in calibrating the Jones Counter that was used to measure the Philly course. For example, the person who did the certification may have made a math error when setting up the sheet that tells the measurer where to lay down the mile marks. So instead of say 19,000 clicks to a mile (that's a completely made up number by me) he/she may have calculated 18,500 clicks.

We don't have access to the paperwork that was filed so this is something the Technical Council would have to look into. I have never heard of a measurer making this kind of mistake but it's the only thing I can think of that would be a possibility if the course was indeed short but no single mile appeared off based on runner's mile splits.

Well back in 1984 I ran 1:07:47 for 65th place and I am sure 100th was closer to 1:10:00 since the depth of competition has falling off.. It is feasible for 1:12:08 to be 100th.. You are talking about a Road race that has historically been one of the FASTEST in the world...Bear in mind that in the same race Joan Benoit ran on my shoulder for 10 miles and Smashed the American record in that race running 1:08:47 Simply a FAST COURSE

well unless a wrong tun was made in the first 4 miles it's impossible to screw that course up as there are no more turns to cut short after 4 miles as it goes around the river...

Is there a reason to wear a Garmin in a race other than to whine about it being the wrong distance? I'm actually curious about why so many people race in them.

I routinely run in the area along the Schuylkill River that made up the back eight of the Philly R&R course, and was running alongside the course while the race was in progress on Sunday.

One particular spot where my Garmin regularly goes haywire is when I pass over the Falls Bridge, which the race course did at around 8.7 miles. There's something about the metal trussing on that bridge that seems to interfere with my Garmin's signal.

A close look at some of the mapping from my Garmin reveals that the signal often doesn't resume until I'm well on my way down the road away from the bridge -- it often shorts my mileage (or appears to lengthen my split) as I cross over the Schuylkill. And it did so on Sunday again.

If your total course length is coming up short, check your splits and review how your Garmin is mapping between the Mile 8 and Mile 9 Markers to see if The Usual Suspect turns up.

I measured courses back in the 1970's and 80's for the TAC (The Athletic Congress). This included being asked to re-measure certified courses that were supposedly accurate.

Whenever you had a great many people running PR's the course was usually short. In all my years of re-measuring I only found two courses that were long.

Garmin's are inaccurate at best. I recently measured a high school cross country course that was supposedly 2.1 miles. I walked it twice using a Garmin. Each time I got a different reading.

Why didn't this end the thread? "USATF certified"

This is clearly the most comical comment thus far.

My teammates, who run frequent half marathons, ALL pr'd and some by very wide margins. I think that the course was short.

I just wheeled the course from start to finish and got 12 miles 1580 meters.

The course was measured correctly, trust me it was not short.

Freelove wrote:Is there a reason to wear a Garmin in a race other than to whine about it being the wrong distance? I'm actually curious about why so many people race in them.

Most people run with some kind of timepiece, right? For a lot of people, their Garmin is their running watch. These days, too, Garmins can be no more cumbersome than a watch. So you get good data during the race - including a pretty good sense of splits, even if there aren't mile markers on the course - and afterward you have a nice record of your run. Doesn't seem all that complicated.