"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.
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.