How should you be ranked? Off of your chip time or the clock time?
I did the LaSalle bank Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago this morning. I finished in 36:13 (amazing for me) but my clock time was 45:30-ish because I started in the corral with my girlfriend in the 10:00 min/mi group, so it took me a solid 9 min to get to the start.
Should I be penalized for that? The rankings were done based on clock time, not chip time! I think that’s totally unfair. Should I get penalized for having to shuffle through 23,000 people to get to the start when others were already running?
If we are going to be timed off of the clock and not our chip, why wear chips at all? I know, it’d be impossible to get numbers for 25,000 people crossing the finish line, but it makes me mad…
I know, I know, it really doesn’t matter. But when I am out there busting my @ss, I want to get the best place I can…
Either way, congratulations to Deena Kastor who set a new American 8k record for the women!
I hope that’s teh case…the results are up and “searchable”…we’ll see if they change.
Is it just me, or does it make no sense to rank off of the clock and not the chip? I mean, I lost 9 min. trying to get to the start! ugh.
I’ve never paid much attention to the Chicago Marathon results because I always wait too long to register and run under someone elses number who backs out!
I learned that the hard way. I believe road races are clock time. So, I always try to get up right at the start line whether I have a chip on or not. The chips usually are used to make sure one does not cut the course and goes by all the points they want to check you at.
Official results are always done by “gun time”. “Chip time” is just a convenience for races that are so crowded that it takes people a long time to get across the start line, so that they can provide an **estimate **of the time it took you to go from the start line to the finish line. Before chips, if you wanted to know your start-to-finish time in a crowded race, you started your watch when you got to the start line. But you can’t really expect to have a race where everyone starts running when they feel like it, and the order of finish is left to the computers to sort out.
The race starts when the gun goes off. The first person to the finish line wins. The official results are by order of finish.
The first time listed is the gun time, the second time listed is the chip time (it’s M25-29 cuz that’s my AG)
51 134 MALES 25 TO 29 Mikecz, Jeremy Saint Louis MO 63132 435 02:39:57 02:39:43 25 M 6:05.4 0:19:19 0:38:28 1:16:10 1:20:16 1:34:41 1:53:35 2:12:27 2:31:22 123 51 79.4 185
52 135 MALES 25 TO 29 Paff, Brian Chicago IL 60608 2184 02:39:49 02:39:45 25 M 6:05.5 0:17:33 0:35:17 1:11:25 1:15:26 1:29:34 1:48:40 2:08:42 2:30:05 124 52 79.4 186
Edit here’s another example
202 1014 MALES 25 TO 29 Bowe, Scott West Allis WI 53219 6804 03:07:42 03:06:49 26 M 7:07.4 0:22:58 0:45:20 1:29:16 1:34:03 1:51:06 2:13:10 2:34:50 2:57:10 930 202 67.9 1772
203 1015 MALES 25 TO 29 Konda, Daren Omaha NE 68164 2025 03:07:19 03:06:50 29 M 7:07.5 0:20:32 0:41:03 1:22:18 1:26:49 1:43:24 2:05:44 2:29:21 2:55:07 931 203 67.9 1773
It’s not always gun time. Depends on the purpose. For the overall win, I suspect every race (or nearly every race) uses gun time – first across the line wins. But, for AG awards and other purposes, some races use chip time as the official time. The Boston Marathon, for example, uses chip time as the official time for certain purposes, including some of the AG awards, but not other purposes.
As for what makes sense, it depends on the structure of the race. If the race (like Boston) requires you to line up in a certain way, it seems unfair to use gun time for every purpose. You’re basically forcing people to race against people who may have a big head start. If everyone has the opportunity to line up where they want, it makes a bit more sense to use gun time – so that you can judge your competition during the race by looking around you without having to worry about someone behind you who is actually ahead on chip time. But, even then, it seems weird to decide a slow AG (old folks, for example) by gun time – it encourages folks to line up way too close to the front.
I am pretty sure these results will be adjusted, they have in years past. Be patient the race is less than 12 hours old. Nice race by the way, tough to weave in and out of all those people, but I really enjoy the race. This was my 5th straight year.
I had the same situation happen last week. The half marathon I ran had a very crowded start so I held back a ways in the start area. When the results came out, I was surprised that they ranked age groups by gun time. When I went back to the race website, I saw that they did make it very clear that gun time, not chip time, was the official time. Although I think it is lame that my time looks 2:00 slower, it actually didn’t affect me in the AG rankings at all (it did affect others).
Here’s an example for you, at a local 10k, I fought this guy tooth and nail over the last 2km or so, and was able to surge late and beat him by a few seconds. Later I checked the results and saw that his “chip time” was faster than me by a few seconds due to when and where he crossed the start line, by your reasoning he “beat me”. Road races are just that, a race, I finished ahead of him on “gun time” and therfore was placed ahead of him, as I should have been. Chip time is for your own records only.
As for the claim that placing is always done on gun time, simply not true. Boston marathon ranks you by chip time.
That’s a really good point, I hadn’t thought of it that way.
I do think it would make more sense to use wave starts (ie. multiple “gun times”) for a situation like that, though. Otherwise, it would seem to encourage top competitors in certain groups to, say, wait a few seconds after their main competition has gone across the line before crossing themselves. Then they could take pace the entire way, and could technically win by finishing just behind their closest competitor. Ranking people by chip time would seem to encourage that.
I have seen races that force you to enter as “professional” or “elite” in order to compete for the official win, but you obviously are allowed to line up in the first 2 or 3 rows as a result.
If a race wanted to organize the waves by AG, then they could do what you’re proposing. However, it could produce a big mess in a larger race where the faster people from the latter waves have to run through the slower people from the earlier waves. Thus, the wave races I am aware of (unlike triathlons) base the waves on your time (from a qualifying race), rather than your AG. So, your AG competition may be spread over several waves. It’s basically a time trial – you just run your best and won’t know how you stack up against your AG competition until the results come out. Maybe not as exciting as a gun time race, but it’s fair.
Your concern about a chip time competitor starting a few seconds later and marking the comeptition ahead is an unfortunate by-product of a pure chip time system. But, in a huge race like Boston or Chicago, I’d bet it would be pretty darn hard to locate and mark your competitors that way (assuming you even know who they are and what they look like).
But by your example, you took more time to complete the race from the starting line to the finish, correct? Did I get that right? So he ran the 10k course in less time than you took, I think he should have beaten you.
Let me take this to the “nth degree”. Let’s say you were at kilometer 9 when he started, but he was able to cover ground so incredibly fast that he finished mere feet behind you when crossing the finish line. Would you still have beaten him? Even though you took, let’s say 40 min and he took 4 min? SUPER extreme example, but you see what I am saying correct?
There were people in this race that crossed the finish line with times of 44 min (clock time) and chip times of 43 min. They technically crossed the finish line before me even though I ran the 8k in 36 min. Should they be ranked above me? I really don’t think so. I ran the 8k a full 7 min faster. No fault of mine that it took me 7 more minutes just to get to the starting line I don’t think.
NOW, it would make sense to me if we had done some sort of qualifying and we were set on a grid. Say we did a 1k qualifier, fastest guy lines up #1 spot, etc. Give him the pole position just like F1. But that isn’t the case. These people just happened to be in line infront of me.
That makes sense to me for the elites who line up side by side, but how can that be true for a race with 30,000 people?! From where I had started for me to finish with a win via clock or gun time, I would have had to run a 17 min 8.
Is that fair? I think it is if they give me my tri bike and an open road, but otherwise, absolutely not!
Official results may ALWAYS go by “gun time” for the elites, but that’s certainly not true with triathlon AG. I’ve done tri’s where age groups are split up and even though I am racing against the m 25-29, they might not all be in my wave. Some might get in a wave before or after me. Does that mean I have to make up the time lost on the guys in the wave in front of me or do I get a cushion against the guys behind me? Of course not.
If you really care about your rank, then you should show up earlier so you can line up near the front. As someone said before, if you are forced to start in a certain wave, like at Boston, or in lots of triathlons, they often use chip time for rankings puposes. Otherwise, especially for running races, gun time typically is used.
