Lake Logan Half in NC has a bike course that may be a few miles short. Does this bother you? Do you think there should be standards? GPS accuracy is ±15 meters. Courses that are measured via GPS will either be long or short a little bit, but never short or long by miles. How much mileage is too short or long that it bothers you? Do you feel like if the race was 68.3 mile or 72.3 miles that you didn’t actually complete a half ironman? Should race directors be held accountable for the distances they claim? Thoughts?
I personally believe that if you advertise a race as a half-ironman, the race should have the correct distances within the error % of GPS accuracy.
There are many courses I have done that because of safety, etc. the bike course is not “accurate” . I did I believe it was Germany Worlds where the swim and bike were both off. And it was for reasons relating to
safety and logistics. Now, as long as the race says accurately what it is, then no big deal. What gets me is when an RD says it is one distance but the real race is quite different. Can you say elevation gain at IMLT?
The Lake Logan race is roughly 3 miles off,(EDIT: 4.5) correct? So, for 70.3, that’s less than 5% (EDIT: ~ 7%? doing math in my head) in variance. Not enough to be too concerned over.
If the argument is time, how long does it take to bike 3 miles? 9 minutes? (EDIT: 15 minutes) so times are inflated by a variance of 9 (15) minutes. That difference isn’t going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
While I understand the argument about the standard distance, I would rather encourage RDs to find new venues for new races, even if that meant a variance in distance of 5%.
I get what you are saying. Most respected marathon or 10K courses are certified, so it would be nice for all HIM & IM courses to be darn close. I’m familiar with the area around Lake Logan (grew up in Waynesville) and it’s a matter of logistics. Laying out a safe and accurate course in that area would be extremely difficult. I’m a little disappointed that it is short on the bike but it will be a great race, run by an excellent company (Set-up), in an absolutely beautiful venue!!!
Personally, I’d rather them admit that it’s 52 miles than say it’s 56 still (though that’d be pretty egregious)
Much, much worse to race a 2.7 mile “5k” or miraculously have everybody swim 16 minute 1500s like I’ve had happen at plenty of races.
Savageman calls itself a 70.0 instead of a 70.3 because the bike is 55.7 instead of 56. I don’t mind the distance is off, and I’m glad they tell you what it is. If you’re looking to set a PR, the missing .3 miles should save you about a minute on the bike.
It is so simple, just say what the distances are. If you find after the race you were wrong, then just own up to it and change it in the results. It is complete and utter bullshit to claim a distance and be off more than 1 % these days. Maybe just a bit more on the swim, but not much. We already do it here in threads after races, RD may as well own up and do it himself before everyone brags about their new PR…
I just love the folks that get into threads and say what a great race, run, ride, swim, it was super fast. I have found that things are never super fast for everyone, get more than a couple PR’s and you most certainly have a short course somewhere…
races that are billed as a standard distance and are short, are annoying
races that are billed as a standard distance and are long are really really freakin annoying.
I once did a local 10km fun run that was 12.2km. Looking at ones watch at X time, it’s time to push for the finish. Not good to go hard for 1km, then 2, then die in the last 200m with a HR of a squillion.
another time I did an ITU Ólympic distance race and the run was a shade over 13km! WTF?
As for "safety"and other answers, there are "reasons"and there are “excuses”. Most RD ‘reasons’ are actually excuses, and just show laziness on the organizing groups part IMHO.
If a race is billed as a particular distance it should be that within a reasonable margin of error and with GPS, that margin is pretty small!
So long as everyone has to do the same distance on any given day, I’m pretty ok with whatever they toss at us.
I think that adhering to a specific distance has some liabilities. There could be some pretty epic/ scenic courses but it seems that there is pressure for the RDs to conform to a specific distance. For example, I was reading a post by Jeff Henderson (the RD for the Musselman) and his thoughts on the topic. He said that he could have a really awesome race by making a full loop around one of the Finger Lakes in upstate NY. He scratched the idea since it would mean that the bike would come in a bit long (maybe 60 miles or something to that affect) but he wouldn’t do it since such a distance would automatically be unpopular. It’s a shame that we limit ourselves in this way. That would have been an awesome race ride. In other races, we have some uninspired out-and-backs just to bump up the distances. Making the distance isn’t always better.
This may I did an Olympic where the bike course the year prior had been like 23.63 miles or something. This yeah however, they had 4 hours to create an entirely new course because if a fatal car accident. Made it like 22 miles. Do I care? Naw. There is no huge prize purse, so for the average ag-er, it’s a hobby. A challenge. Just for fun.
Re: Germany I do most of my racing there and it’s very common to have inexact distances. For example sprints are usually between the range of 400-600 km swim 19-25 km bike and 5-6 km run. Olympics sometimes have slightly shorter or longer swims i.e. 1.4-1.6 and the bike is sometimes a bit over. For longer, i.e. middle distance races it’s also very common to have 80 km bikes which is done for logistical reasons when they run an OD race on the same day.
Edit: I should note they are always upfront about this.
Savageman calls itself a 70.0 instead of a 70.3 because the bike is 55.7 instead of 56. I don’t mind the distance is off, and I’m glad they tell you what it is. If you’re looking to set a PR, the missing .3 miles should save you about a minute on the bike.
LOLz. PR at Savageman, hardy har har.
I can understand how sometimes, a bike course won’t be exactly 56m or 40k, due to the road layout, logistics, etc.
But at least fess up about it!
I remember at Du Nats in '09, both run courses (10k and 5k) were WAY off - and both featured at least 1 out and back - how f’n hard would it be to actually measure the damn course, and move the turnaround so it all comes out right???