Ultra discussion: thoughts on the Georgia Death Race controversy?

Agreed11 wrote:

Run Gum wrote:

The way this has played out is shameful. Anyone who tries to argue facts is shouted down by Blanton’s army of kiss asses. Something like 17 of the top 20 got off course. The reroute added .2 miles and knocked off a few hundred feet. For M4 to claim he could have beaten M3 when he got smoked in the last 8 miles is garbage. And the woman complaining got housed by 2+ hrs. The “wrong way” provided no significant advantage - certainly not an hour. 5-10 minutes tops.

Craig Thornley and the Western States board need to step in and help. Blanton is in over his head and can’t manage this.

Agreed 100% - this is an absolute joke and the race director / Shawn Webber should be ashamed

I"m pretty sure all ultras US side are a joke.

Some info from an insider..

Craig doesn’t seem to agree with Sean’s decision of an arbitrary penalty of 1 hour, but he doesn’t seem willing to go to bat to make things right. He doesn’t know where Sean came up with the 1 hour estimate.

Seems like he is content to distance himself from the whole controversy and not mess up his reputation, rather than stepping in and making this right.

This whole thing makes Western states leadership look like a joke... when an RD can dish out arbitrary penalties to help his buddies without reviewing the GPS data, or looking at the facts. And somehow Western states agrees with this reckless approach? Absolutely disgraceful

If this was a news story the headline would be "Hikers in the woods take a different trail and some folks are mad about it."

But seriously, the whole situation was handled wrong. The runners who cut the course should have had to run back and take the proper route. As stated on the website for the race under the Rules section "No Cutting the Course." Guess that should have been listed as a guideline.

Another consideration is that the lead female took the correct route so it's reasonable to think the course was marked properly, if it wasn't she would have cut the course along with the other runners.

https://www.runbumtours.com/gdr-general-information

420FARTMASTER69 wrote:

But seriously, the whole situation was handled wrong. The runners who cut the course should have had to run back and take the proper route. As stated on the website for the race under the Rules section "No Cutting the Course." Guess that should have been listed as a guideline.

Another consideration is that the lead female took the correct route so it's reasonable to think the course was marked properly, if it wasn't she would have cut the course along with the other runners.

You cite that one person took the right way, so it must have been properly marked, even though almost half the field when the other way? From what I read in this thread, it sounds like people going either way all took a flagged route, and it lead everyone to the finish. The flags apparently went both ways, so if you are in the field, it's a guess which way is correct. People that were running in the vicinity of others probably just followed who they were with, while others just guessed, so it ended up close enough to 50/50 chance.

They probably didn't sort this out until the finish, probably in after race discussions, maybe not until after people did strava uploads. Looking at the Strava, the paths diverged about 16 miles in a ~66 mile race. So you are suggesting that almost half the field go back from the finish, where they probably learned about the discrepancy, to do an extra 100 miles roundtrip to do the "proper course" in order to get an official finish? It's likely people going either way probably didn't know which was actually the "correct" way until well after the race.

A cynic would say that they didn’t have to re-trace their steps because that would have resulted in the death of the RD, whereas it was actually the runners’ job to die.

What? So the course was mismarked and those that 'cut' the course ran an extra half mile? Why would they be penalized at all?They ran an extra half mile - that's worth a lost more than 300 feet in elevation as every 10 feet is worth 1.8 seconds so 300 feet is 54 seconds. Sounds like there should be no penalty.

Me here you IHOP wrote:

Pick a side you waffler.

The runners screwed up. They should know the course. They could have back tracked and avoided the penalty, but they made their choice. They should have been DQd.

Can we stop with the crap about how runners need to know the course? I've seen tons of African runners run marathons sight unseen.

You want runners to job a 70 mile course with 70,000 feet of elevation change simply so they can know it? No, that's why they pay the entry fees.

So can someone tell me why there is any penalty or did they run 1/2 mile less. The OP said 1/2 mile more.

If you looked at the strava then you should know that in the 150ish folks that uploaded their data just under 30 took the side trail. I'm no mathematician but that's less than 20% and is a very good sample size for the 156 people that finished the race.

What I'm saying is since the people who cut the course informed the AS volunteers that means they know they cut the course but failed to take the proper action which is to back track to where you took a wrong turn and complete the course. If they had done that there wouldn't be a controversy.

WSER should drop GDR from the Golden ticket race after this. Could you imagine If in 2016 when Walmsely went off course if he'd have kept going and finished cutting 2.5 miles off the course and all they did was slap him with an hour penalty? Luckily WSER didn't have to deal with that cause he turned around and got back on course from where he made the wrong turn and finished.

But Ultra running is a subjective sport anyways. The rules are made up and the points don't matter.

rojo wrote:

Can we stop with the crap about how runners need to know the course? I've seen tons of African runners run marathons sight unseen.

I'm going to have to disagree with this on the sole reason that 99.9% of the time in road marathons, the lead runners have an escort of some type (police, bicycle, truck, etc) that knows where to turn. We've seen cases where the top/lead runners just "follow" the escort vehicle when it makes a wrong turn. Imagine if they had to do it on their own, with no lead escort like trail runners have to do...then they'd have to "know" the course..or rely on markings.

At this particular race (GDR) it sounds like there was mass confusion due to a new trail that was cut. This is VERY odd because most of the time, the "flagging" on a trail course is only done a few days prior at most to the race being run. Are you telling me the park service cut a new trail a day or two after they flagged the course earlier in the week? Seems highly unlikely to me.

It’s a shame that the guy who got screwed out of 3rd place (and a golden ticket to western) is too much of a puss to stand up for himself. He’s getting the shaft and he earned that 3rd place (and potentially a golden ticket to western)

Seems like nobody is standing up for him

The trail wasn’t cut just days before the course. According to the RD on the podcast, the trail was built in recent months, so prior to the course being marked. The RD did a crappy job of marking the trail to make it clear at that junction. Totally on the RD.

Thanks Rojo. You have it correct that the “incorrect” route was .2 longer and a few hundred feet less climb. The flagging was fixed after the 3rd place guy at the time informed the RD mid -race. So - most mid and back of the packers are completely unaware of the real issue and are piling on those that say this really happened. The flyby data tells the story.

The penalty itself was completely made up by the RD who has no concept of how to really assess the situation and it’s only functional effect was to move the rightful M3 to M4 in place of someone who was being louder and was more friendly with said RD. This is crucial because the belief on the street is that Elliot is unlikely to accept the Golden Ticket.

420FARTMASTER69 wrote:

If you looked at the strava then you should know that in the 150ish folks that uploaded their data just under 30 took the side trail. I'm no mathematician but that's less than 20% and is a very good sample size for the 156 people that finished the race.

I didn't look at all the strava. Ain't nobody got time for that. I just looked enough to see how the two routes diverged. The rest was relying on this thread.

Are you saying that 150 of 156 finishers posted to strava? That's incredibly high and hard to believe unless it was a requirement of the rsce or something. I didn't think that high a percentage even use GPS watch, much less post publically on Strava. Especially women, who are more concerned about stalkers and often have private accounts if on strava at all (my GF chooses to not be on Strava for that reason). And they all gave GPS watches that have extra long battery life too? I would have guessed that many have no idea which way they took, and have no GPS track to look back on.

I feel bad for the RD if the markings were added by another party. But there's hardly a time difference between the two like rojo said. If poorly marked, both routes should count, with no time penalty.

There should be two outcomes to this either EVERY runner who took the route (which was many and 17 of the top 20) should be DQ'd. Or there should be a legitimate penalty issued. One hour is crazy. And it only effects the M3. M4 got taken to the cleaners later in the race and did not earn a Golden Ticket if Elliott decides to not attend. M3 poured it on late and deserves his position to stay. M4 (Shawn Webber) has called out people behind the scenes and caused this to happen. He got his way and others (who beat him) are paying for it. Blanton should be ashamed and this should be a lesson to stay away from Run Bum races. I did one (Quest for the Crest 50k in 2017) and was denied water at one aid station because "there were too many people behind me that might still need it." Blanton was doing shots at the pre race meeting. Could not give me basic info for the race when asked to him face to face. Then was doing keg stands at the finish while his racers were finishing.

Softultrarunners wrote:

It’s a shame that the guy who got screwed out of 3rd place (and a golden ticket to western) is too much of a puss to stand up for himself. He’s getting the shaft and he earned that 3rd place (and potentially a golden ticket to western)

Seems like nobody is standing up for him

Only top 2 get Golden Ticket, unless they decline. Strava shows 2nd place male ran different route than 1st. I'm assuming the "wrong" route. How come so much discussion about 3rd and 4th snd consequences of a 1 hr penalty there, but not 2nd?

zzzz wrote:

Softultrarunners wrote:

It’s a shame that the guy who got screwed out of 3rd place (and a golden ticket to western) is too much of a puss to stand up for himself. He’s getting the shaft and he earned that 3rd place (and potentially a golden ticket to western)

Seems like nobody is standing up for him

Only top 2 get Golden Ticket, unless they decline. Strava shows 2nd place male ran different route than 1st. I'm assuming the "wrong" route. How come so much discussion about 3rd and 4th snd consequences of a 1 hr penalty there, but not 2nd?

Rumor is 1st place finisher will decline ticket. He hasn’t run a 100 mile race yet and is more of a mountain runner guy, this ticket would fall to third place

[/quote]

I didn't look at all the strava.

Are you saying that 150 of 156 finishers posted to strava?

I feel bad for the RD if the markings were added by another party. But there's hardly a time difference between the two like rojo said. If poorly marked, both routes should count, with no time penalty.[/quote]

I'm saying 150 of the people who ran the race uploaded to strava. That's right about half the starting field, only 156 finished.

Probably a 5 minute difference in time and over 600 feet of elevation gain of difference. Granted that really isn't a lot over the course of 70+ mile race but the fact that the lead runner was passed and wasn't aware until later is just wrong, it'd take some serious mental gymnastics to argue that isn't wrong. That completely changes the outcome of the race. The ladies that passed her didn't have to make a move to pass other than cut the course, that should never be ok in a race. This doesn't give the lead lady a chance to cover the move and we won't know if she could have covered it.

Like I said before Ultra running is a subjective sport where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

rojo - your 1.8 seconds per 10ft nonsense doesn't work in road races and it certainly doesn't work in trail races. all you have to do is look at the strava flyby to see that the runners who took the wrong turn benefited by a couple minutes over those who followed the correct course, despite running a longer distance.

This whole situation and people's reactions to it are the definitive proof that trail ultrarunners are a bunch of entitled snowflakes.

Mizuno fanboy wrote:

This whole situation and people's reactions to it are the definitive proof that trail ultrarunners are a bunch of entitled snowflakes.

I agree - especially Shawn Webber. Dude got beat fair and square, then after he got smoked he immediately goes to the RD and whines so he can get moved into 3rd place. What a softie

He has no business being in a tough sport like trail running