Marathon courses short in the 70's and 80's?

Ran a 10k in '71 I think - out and back. No turns - straight - on hardpack beach. Ran fast. Wondered. Measured myself with wheel. It was 50y long. Exception I'm sure. Not a marathon - apples / oranges?

I know one marathon course (Culver City) 'in the day' that, was out and back; big time straight (4-5+? miles), in fact I think Norm Higgins ran his 2:15.xx on it, and pretty sure Bill Scobey 2:15.21. I don't know if that one was wheeled. Borrrring course tho. Scobey too was in that beach race I measured.

How come are track times are better?

I think the reason marathon times don't have the depth of the 70's and early 80's while the track times do have good depth (relatively speaking) is that there are fewer good distance runners running marathon. In the 70's and 80's you weren't considered a good distance runner if you weren't a marathoner. Virgin changed that some, but even he eventually ran the marathon (and it nearly killed him since his only kidney got infected as a result). For the last 15-20 years track ruled. If everyone focuses on fast track times, you get fast track times instead of fast marathons.

Bike computers are often much less accurate than 1m/km, my own bike measures 1000m as 1007m even though it is calibrated to the nearest centimetre of wheel circumferance.

Virgin, in fact, said that he finally ran the marathon because the only races that anyone seemed to care about were the mile and the marathon.

The person who wanted to know why track times are faster these days, while marathon times are slower, is operating on a mistaken premise. Aside from Meb, who has run marginally faster than the top Americans of the early and mid-1980s over 10,000 meters, the 10,000-meter runners in the U.S. these days aren't faster than the top guys back then (Salazar, Virgin, Bickford, Nenow, etc.). Moreover, there were quite a number of marathoners back then who either did or could have run under 28 for 10,000 meters off of their marathon training (Meyer, Salazar, Rodgers, Sandoval, etc.), and many others who were low-28 guys.

obvious pointer outer wrote:

Next time just post the link. We don't need the entire frigging manual embedded in a web page.

yeah that was such a waste of ink

Benji Durden wrote:

Virgin changed that some, but even he eventually ran the marathon (and it nearly killed him since his only kidney got infected as a result).

Embellishment, et tu Benji?

We don't actually use bike computers to measure courses. The standard here in the states is the jones counter which records 18 "clicks" per revolution of a bike wheel (I think it is 18 since I don't have it here in my hand). We ride a measured check course that is straight, flat, measured either with a steel tape or electronic surveying equipment and is at least 1000 feet long. Our reference measurement is based on the average number of clicks for the distance of the check course. I usually use an 800 meter check course I set out in the early 90's and I usually have a measure that works out to about 11000 clicks per kilometer, but there is a lot of variation based temperature and air pressure. We then measure our race course. When we are done we re-calibrate the bike and use which ever calibration constant makes the course the shortest.

bd

Cheers Benji

I'm guessing that you think Virgin's kidney infection was an embellishment? I can only report what Craig and others told me about how sick he was after his race at Boston. He got really dehydrated at Boston and it was a stress on his kidney (he only has one due surgery earlier in life) and it caused the kidney to get infected. I just threw it in as an aside. He never ran another marathon (as far as I know anyway).

bd

I have one or two answers. Before the mid 60s there were very few Marathons. Boston, Yonkers, Cherry Tree in New Yrk Culver City, St Hyacinthe in Quebec Province. I am sure that I missed a couple

In 1957, Boston was found to be short between 1951 and 1957 and was lengthened 1,183 yards (there had been road work in several towns on the course over the years that had not been reported to the Boston Marathon Committee). Since then the start and finish have been moved a couple of times.

I am holding in my hand Ted Corbitt's book which was written by John Choads and published in 1974. The last few pages give a brief outline of Ted's small book "Measuring Road Running Courses" which was completed in 1964 and which helped spur the revolution in long distance running. The preface to the article states "For the first time in America, road courses became standardized." The Road Runners Club was very active in helping measure courses in the early 60s and thereafter. Corbitt and others throughout the country including Bob Carman in California were very involved. I believe they usually used the Tape Measurement or chaining, Calibrated surveyor's measuring wheel or calibrated bicycle methods.

Some of the above posters know better than I what happened after the very early 70s.

Anyone interested in the marathon would enjoy "Corbitt" and "Boston Marathon, The history of the World's Premier Running Event" by Tom Derderian and published in 1994.

To reiterate what Benji has already explained, UK measurers (and I believe throughout Europe) also use the Jones counter as standard measuring equipment. In my case, I had a calibration base laid out along a dead-straight kilometre. This baseline was measured to better than 1cm, using electronic surveying equipment (I did this myself, as I am actually a chartered land surveyor by profession). Before each course measurement, I would ride the calibration base 4 times and use an average value for my measurement. Immediately after the measurement I would return to the baseline and ride it 4 more times. Any major change between 'before' and 'after' calibrations would result in me returning to re-measure the course. Minor changes could be accomodated into the calculations, or ignored, depending on their magnitude. This system has been used in the UK since at least the early 80s - but it is down to the race director to contact an accredited course measurer in the first place.

One other point: someone mentioned measurement by surveyors wheel - this will almost always result in a short measurement because it is impossible to ensure that the wheel always maintains contact with the ground. Even the smallest bump can cause the wheel to leave the ground and "free-wheel", meaning that it clocks up addititonal distance.

I would say there is some truth to measuring by car! But then the fact is most cars tend to have milage "turn slower" than faster as you drive....So I guess your statement is correct....

MOST MARATHONS IN THE 70's & 80's WERE SHORT...Just short of 28 miles...

My 2:42 P.R. now makes me feel a whole lot better....

Benji Durden wrote:

I'm guessing that you think Virgin's kidney infection was an embellishment? I can only report what Craig and others told me about how sick he was after his race at Boston. He got really dehydrated at Boston and it was a stress on his kidney (he only has one due surgery earlier in life) and it caused the kidney to get infected. I just threw it in as an aside. He never ran another marathon (as far as I know anyway).

bd

Dehydration is not a causal agent for kidney infections.

Benji,

Sorry to intrude on this entirely unrelated thread but I don't know how else to contact you. I was wondering if you could e-mail me regarding a brief interview (phone or e-mail) for my bachelor's thesis on the 1980 Olympic.

Thanks,

Schuyler

Ok dehydration didn't cuase the infection Craig got right after running Boston. I guess it was a coincidence. My bad.

Hi Benji. The old Jones counter clicked off 20 counts per revolution. The newer Jones/Oerth Counter clicks off 23.636363.... per revolution. Dave Poppers-Colorado/Utah USATF certifier.