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Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake
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"Crushing" is how one runner described learning the Gulf Coast Marathon course was .295 miles short of the 26.2 miles needed to be a full marathon.
Saturday's race was billed as a qualifying event for the prestigious Boston Marathon, but the shortage leaves those runners still chasing that dream.


  • Runners made complaints Sunday that the course was not 26.2 miles. By Monday, they were submitting Strava and Garmin data to Dziuba to show that the race was short.
  • At first, runners were getting a standard response to distance discrepancies related to satellite data, for Dziuba personally measured the course set for certification, and turnarounds were marked to his exact specifications, he said.
  • The error occurred when Dziuba instructed the person measuring and setting the turnarounds on Interstate 110 to set turnaround point at the second interstate truss mark. Runners should have, in fact, turned around at the third truss mark.

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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [CHITRI123] [ In reply to ]
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Of all the mistakes races make, and this is not the first time I have seen this on a marathon, I cannot think of something worse for the amount of training needed
to go for a BQ.

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [CHITRI123] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not a runner, but aren't these BQ courses supposed to be "certified"? If so, what does that mean?

Just curious.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [nc452010] [ In reply to ]
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nc452010 wrote:
I'm not a runner, but aren't these BQ courses supposed to be "certified"? If so, what does that mean?

Just curious.

Certification means the course was measured according to one of several standards. But even if the course is certified in advance, if the set-up is not in accordance with the measurement instructions, then you can still have this situation...e.g., certified using a turn at the 3rd truss, but set up for the day with the turn at the 2nd truss. So the error here appears to be set-up, not measurement.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [CHITRI123] [ In reply to ]
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Wow! Such a simple course. RD Dziuba should be strung up!


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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [Brushman] [ In reply to ]
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Brushman wrote:
Wow! Such a simple course. RD Dziuba should be strung up!

Before stringing him up, we would want to look at the certification map and verify that it did show the turn at the 3rd truss and clearly stated such.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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Why couldn't they just take the runners average pace over the distance shortage and calculate a "projected" finish time. To me that seems fair.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [TrierinKC] [ In reply to ]
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Typically they won't follow that approach because the actual pace at the end is much slower than the average pace for the race; but its not the same for everyone. A person might have been walking at that point, passed out, stopped for leg cramps, etc.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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HuffNPuff wrote:
Brushman wrote:
Wow! Such a simple course. RD Dziuba should be strung up!


Before stringing him up, we would want to look at the certification map and verify that it did show the turn at the 3rd truss and clearly stated such.
Agreed, all aspects of race course certification and set-up should be thoroughly scrutinized. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the race director.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [TrierinKC] [ In reply to ]
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There was another course which was a couple 100m long that also lost it's certification. Even the guys who ran under the bq limit on the longer course weren't allowed to use the result.

Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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https://www.usatf.org/events/courses/maps/showMap.asp?courseID=MS16018MS


You'd have to street view it, but the TA is supposed to be
"105' N of Intermediate mark 12"

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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [dfroelich] [ In reply to ]
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I've seen some course measurers mark a turn like that with a steel pin hammered into the asphalt. But apparently this was concrete. Would be interesting to see how that written direction actually lines up with the "3rd truss".
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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I have a friend who BQ'd this race - oops not - far enough under that the actual difference still would have been a BQ. There was one - just one - turnaround on the course, and the RD was too busy to check if it was done correctly. I don't care how this plays out, but ultimately it falls on the RD. And to screw up the course then just tell people "oops, it sucks that you trained hard for months, but you wasted your time here and I still get to keep your money" is not a viable option for this race to continue/survive.

I'm closer to the feathered end of the spear than the point.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [David_Tris] [ In reply to ]
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David_Tris wrote:
I have a friend who BQ'd this race - oops not - far enough under that the actual difference still would have been a BQ. There was one - just one - turnaround on the course, and the RD was too busy to check if it was done correctly. I don't care how this plays out, but ultimately it falls on the RD. And to screw up the course then just tell people "oops, it sucks that you trained hard for months, but you wasted your time here and I still get to keep your money" is not a viable option for this race to continue/survive.

But that is what will happen

Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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So, it looks like they turned the runners around just south of Division (~100ft after the 2nd truss). The third truss is just south of Percy. It looks like that chopped a little less than 1000 ft on each leg.

Whoops.

All they needed to nail was the start line, turnaround and finish. No excuse there.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [Brushman] [ In reply to ]
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Brushman wrote:
HuffNPuff wrote:
Brushman wrote:
Wow! Such a simple course. RD Dziuba should be strung up!


Before stringing him up, we would want to look at the certification map and verify that it did show the turn at the 3rd truss and clearly stated such.
Agreed, all aspects of race course certification and set-up should be thoroughly scrutinized. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the race director.

gotta string up someone - b/c yeah, this is brutal.
i feel bad for anyone who PRed at that race - got that asterisk that's gonna hang over it.
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Re: Gulf Coast Marathon Short 1,555 Feet - Measuring Mistake [Bob Loblaw] [ In reply to ]
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The twin cities marathon organization had been playing with fire on this front the last five years. First, they screwed up their ten mile race that runs in conjunction with the marathon. screwed up a turn early in the race led to the race being about 0.1 miles short. They seemed to just blow off the fact they messed up. I tried to talk to an official at the finish and he just blew me off saying it was GPS error. They sent an email out a few weeks later admitting the mistake. Made it seem like no big deal. They were lucky it wasn't the marathon. The next year, they put the turn around for their ten kilometer race (run he day before the marathon) one block late. Ended up being my 6.48 mile PR race. They never addressed that screw up in any way. If either of those mistakes had happened with the marathon they would have had a lot of angry runners. I wonder what the Boston folks would say to two errors in measurement in two years? Would that impact their ability to be a Boston qualifier?

It isn't complicated to setup on race day, it just takes attention to detail.

Ryan
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