Cherry Blossom course short?

John Sissala Master Course Measurer wrote:

From a former Montgomery County Road Runners Club (Maryland) president:

"John Sissala, measured and certified the Cherry Blossom courses in March, 2019. Both courses are accurate.

You may have noticed that both the 10 mile and 5K races had new courses this year. Both had to be measured and certified just before the race

The course changes are due to road construction"

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the runners ran the course as it was measured. If someone placed a cone in the wrong place, then the course that was run could have been short. I am not saying this happened, but it is possible.

Officially measured after event to confirm pre-event at longer than 10.0 miles.

Not seeing a certified course map on the USATF for the course ran? Only the course that goes over Memorial Bridge?

UsATF wrote:

Officially measured after event to confirm pre-event at longer than 10.0 miles.

Says who? I have not seen that anywhere other than you making it up.

At approximately mile 5.5, a new road had just been laid by DC Dept of Transportation (DDOT). Approximately 40% took this new road, which resulted in them running .02 longer and but cut out a significant climb at this juncture of 3 feet. Once the three hundred and thirty eight place male alerted a water station worker, volunteers were sent to the confusing area and they formed a human barricade to not allow the remaining runners to take this new road.

Because of this, all participants who took the new road were given a time penalty of 1 hour by the RD.

My wife got a 10 mile best on Strava :08 before the final of the 10 mile race, so looks like the course was right and GPS was wrong. Her official distance was 10.01 miles.

My wife got a 10 Mile best on Strava app :08 seconds before the end of the race, so looks like GPS was short and course was accurate. Her total distance was 10.01 miles. Like an idiot I scanned 25-30 guys in the 1:02-1:05 range and they all ran between 10.0 - 10.18 miles.

In The Know... wrote:

At approximately mile 5.5, a new road had just been laid by DC Dept of Transportation (DDOT). Approximately 40% took this new road, which resulted in them running .02 longer and but cut out a significant climb at this juncture of 3 feet. Once the three hundred and thirty eight place male alerted a water station worker, volunteers were sent to the confusing area and they formed a human barricade to not allow the remaining runners to take this new road.

Because of this, all participants who took the new road were given a time penalty of 1 hour by the RD.

This is clearly a troll post and none of this is true...

Letsrun Memeinator wrote:

John Sissala Master Course Measurer wrote:

From a former Montgomery County Road Runners Club (Maryland) president:

"John Sissala, measured and certified the Cherry Blossom courses in March, 2019. Both courses are accurate.

You may have noticed that both the 10 mile and 5K races had new courses this year. Both had to be measured and certified just before the race

The course changes are due to road construction"

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the runners ran the course as it was measured. If someone placed a cone in the wrong place, then the course that was run could have been short. I am not saying this happened, but it is possible.

Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm sure they measured it correctly when they laid out the course then it seems like it wasn't executed correctly.

Can we see the certified map for this version of the course? It's not on the USATF website

GPS is inaccurate almost always if there are many circular turns. Sometimes longer and sometimes shorter.

Wife wrote:

My wife got a 10 Mile best on Strava app :08 seconds before the end of the race, so looks like GPS was short and course was accurate. Her total distance was 10.01 miles. Like an idiot I scanned 25-30 guys in the 1:02-1:05 range and they all ran between 10.0 - 10.18 miles.

How do you know the course was accurate?

Strava will give several thousand data points. Here's last year

https://www.strava.com/running-races/2018-cherry-blossom-10-mile

I see quite a lot of 10.08. I think a proper course this year would have shown 10.07-10.09 for most folks instead of 9.99-10.02.

Very unfortunate, CB is an awesome race.

Hahahah.. people trying to hate on 10.01 as being short!! Losers.

kjklkak wrote:

Hahahah.. people trying to hate on 10.01 as being short!! Losers.

Haha, people trying to prove the course accuracy with GPS. Just wait until the course is re-measured.

Why not? GPS can help tell if the cones were placed correctly. Marathons have been invalidated for Boston by GPS data.

Does the cone placement match the certified submitted course? From people's data?

where there's smoke wrote:

Why not? GPS can help tell if the cones were placed correctly. Marathons have been invalidated for Boston by GPS data.

Does the cone placement match the certified submitted course? From people's data?

You can certainly show evidence taht the course was wrong with GPS data but you can't prove it was right by the GPS distance.

LoneStarXC wrote:

I wasn’t at Cherry Blossom but, serious question, do most people’s Garmins measure everything long? Because my Garmin (it’s a 235) always measures shorter than reality. It says 400 meters on the track is 0.23 miles. Since tracks obviously can’t be short, did I somehow manage to end up with a defective watch? Those Cherry Blossom measurements seem a lot more accurate than my watch ever gets. ?‍♀️

Your 235 seems to be working fine. Turn off the GPS at the track, it's not accurate due to all the turns.

I ran a USATF certified 19 miker this weekend and my 235 reported 10.07 miles. This gives me some confidence that the course was likely not short. That's all that can be said. If I came up with 9.99 or similar I would be wondering if it was short.

^

10 miler

I lost the satellite when the race went on I-66 under the overpass (approx. mile 2.5). From then on, my watch didn't match the mile markers.

Checking the flybys, looks like everyone's signal got wonky there.