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Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago
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If you raced today and were waiting around for awards afterwards, you can blame me for the delay :) The error has largely been rectified now and I don't have any screenshots, but total times and resulting places were computed on when you crossed the mat to enter the water. For those that didn't race today, this is significant because Lifetime Chicago uses wave starts: your wave gets into the water, you tread water for two minutes or so, and then the gun goes off and you start. Logically, everyone in the same wave should have the same start time. Prior to Lifetime correcting the mistake, the times were such that if you were one of the first people in your wave to cross the timing mat to get into the water you were essentially penalized relative to the last person to cross the mat.

I caught this error when I was reviewing my results today and noticed some strange inconsistencies with regards to the times of people in my wave. The scary part is that almost nobody in the timing tent could understand what I was explaining to them. I was finally referred to the "Head Timer" and after explaining the error about three times he finally understood at which point you could see despair come across his face as they had to correct the start times manually for every competitor.
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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GreenPlease wrote:
If you raced today and were waiting around for awards afterwards, you can blame me for the delay :) The error has largely been rectified now and I don't have any screenshots, but total times and resulting places were computed on when you crossed the mat to enter the water. For those that didn't race today, this is significant because Lifetime Chicago uses wave starts: your wave gets into the water, you tread water for two minutes or so, and then the gun goes off and you start. Logically, everyone in the same wave should have the same start time. Prior to Lifetime correcting the mistake, the times were such that if you were one of the first people in your wave to cross the timing mat to get into the water you were essentially penalized relative to the last person to cross the mat.

I caught this error when I was reviewing my results today and noticed some strange inconsistencies with regards to the times of people in my wave. The scary part is that almost nobody in the timing tent could understand what I was explaining to them. I was finally referred to the "Head Timer" and after explaining the error about three times he finally understood at which point you could see despair come across his face as they had to correct the start times manually for every competitor.

I understand the error but I'm not following how they were able to competently correct this??? Can you explain further, perhaps using a couple of examples???


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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Let's just say my wave was supposed to go off at 7:15 and I crossed the mat to go into the water at 7:13:01 and someone else crossed the mat to go into the water at 7:13:02... someone else at 7:13:18... 7:13:55... those were the athletes times. Even though the gun might have gone off at 7:15:05 and that should have been the start time for everyone in the wave, everyone actually had different start times. So let's just use the foregoing times.

Let's say all four of the preceding hypothetical racers swam 22:00 exactly, biked 60:00 exactly, ran 42:00 exactly, and had exactly 5:00 of transition time... from when the gun went off. We all crossed the finish line holding hands. In that case, if I went into the water at 7:13:01 I would have finished last and the guy who went into the water at 7:13:55 would have finished first because times were computed from when we went into the water rather than when the wave actually started.

To correct this, the timers had to go through the whole field and correct the time for that first mat to when each wave went off rather than when the competitors crossed the mat to get into the water.
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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GreenPlease wrote:
Let's just say my wave was supposed to go off at 7:15 and I crossed the mat to go into the water at 7:13:01 and someone else crossed the mat to go into the water at 7:13:02... someone else at 7:13:18... 7:13:55... those were the athletes times. Even though the gun might have gone off at 7:15:05 and that should have been the start time for everyone in the wave, everyone actually had different start times. So let's just use the foregoing times.

Let's say all four of the preceding hypothetical racers swam 22:00 exactly, biked 60:00 exactly, ran 42:00 exactly, and had exactly 5:00 of transition time... from when the gun went off. We all crossed the finish line holding hands. In that case, if I went into the water at 7:13:01 I would have finished last and the guy who went into the water at 7:13:55 would have finished first because times were computed from when we went into the water rather than when the wave actually started.

To correct this, the timers had to go through the whole field and correct the time for that first mat to when each wave went off rather than when the competitors crossed the mat to get into the water.

Ah, I see now. I did not realize they actually tracked the exact time the gun went off for each wave but obv it's a good thing they did. And so, are you in the timing business, as well as racing yourself??? Also, is the 22:00/60:00/42:00 an approximation of your splits??? Or perhaps of your ultimate "ideal splits"??? :)


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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I spend so much time looking at spreadsheets that I've probably developed a knack for finding errors in the way things are computed haha.


Two of those splits are half-decent. One of those is not, haha ;) I was a bit slower than that today (but not much). Transitions are longer than that too at Lifetime Chicago. I think I had 5:22 in total transition time and that probably put me in the top 20 for total transition time... not that this is a competitive race by any means. Tons of first timers. Some fast locals show up though. It's 0.34 of a mile from swim out to the bike mount line and about 0.19 of a mile from bike dismount to run out. It's a MASSIVE transition area as you'd expect with ~8,000 people racing.
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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GreenPlease wrote:
I spend so much time looking at spreadsheets that I've probably developed a knack for finding errors in the way things are computed haha.
Two of those splits are half-decent. One of those is not, haha ;) I was a bit slower than that today (but not much). Transitions are longer than that too at Lifetime Chicago. I think I had 5:22 in total transition time and that probably put me in the top 20 for total transition time... not that this is a competitive race by any means. Tons of first timers. Some fast locals show up though. It's 0.34 of a mile from swim out to the bike mount line and about 0.19 of a mile from bike dismount to run out. It's a MASSIVE transition area as you'd expect with ~8,000 people racing.

Damn, they should make the run 5.7 miles then, just to even it out. You're not supposed to have to run an extra 0.5 mi in transition. I hate it when that happens. :)


"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [ericmulk] [ In reply to ]
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I have a hard time believing they had to fix everyone individually, that would be near impossible to do in a timely manner and doesn't make sense. I time on the weekends which is why I'm saying this. Using the time they cross the mats as their scratch time is a colossal mess up, but is a fairly easy database fix to reassign their start times based on wave start. If they really had to fix everyone individually, I feel very sorry for whoever had to do that!
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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Very nice catch!
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [GreenPlease] [ In reply to ]
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The results in 2015 were so messed up that the awards didn't happen until like 2pm. Even to this day they are wrong. They did not care enough to make them right

http://www.TriScottsdale.org
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [apbadger] [ In reply to ]
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Hi apbadger,

I have a timing company. I've made similar mistakes.

The good news is that with the software I have, I can leave the 'mat crossing time' in the athletes result file, but tell the system to take the wave start time. So, that would be an easy/non-individual switch.

A similar situation in a road race would be at the start mat where I told the system to take the first time the software saw the athlete, rather than the last time. In other words, an athlete at the start line might have got there at 8:52am and the race started at 9:00:00am. His results would then have 8 minutes added to his actual time. If used correctly, his last read might have been 9:00:01am, giving him a chip time one second less than his actual 'gun to finish line' time. I've made that mistake. The awards ceremonies get pretty animated.

I'm glad there was a sharp athlete at the event. He would have saved me a lot of heartache. Good catch!

Mark

Fast-Finishes.com
Triathlon and Running Race Timing
Athletic Event Management
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Re: Rookie Timing Mistake Today At Lifetime Chicago [themuse1] [ In reply to ]
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I suppose I can see how the mistake would happen if you aren't looking for it. When you time do you do a manual check for the first finishers? That is something I do as standard protocol and I feel does a good job catching an issue like this.

For example, we write down the top 5-10 finishers and compare with the times we get from the software. And when we start races there's generally a 90-120 sec difference between hitting the stage mats and wave gun times, so I'd notice if it was off. But, as I'm sure you know, shit always happens when timing and can make race morning chaotic! Good thing the athlete made the catch like others said!
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