Newport Marathon course TOO LONG // How could this happen?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- As we are now deep into Spring marathon races, another marathon organiser has admitted to measuring their course too long.
How can this happen, especially as historically both Manchester and Brighton have had courses measured too long or too short recoded in recent times?
Thankfully, whilst Newport marathon organisers have admitted to the course being too long, they have agreed with London Marathon organisers that for those applying for GFA or Championship places, their times will be reduced by an average of 70 seconds, depending what their finish times were.
/////
You can follow my full training on Strava here:
/ strava
Join my Strava Club - Train, Race, Pizza:
/ strava
/////
SUBSCRIBE to my channel here for FREE: bit.ly/3difcSD
SUPPORT MY CHANNEL HERE: ko-fi.com/donato
Thank you so much for stopping by to watch this and really appreciate you taking the time to watch this.
If you have enjoyed this in any way and have not already done so, please do give a thumbs up, leave a positive Comment below and Subscribe.
Thank you!
SUBSCRIBE here: bit.ly/3difcSD - กีฬา
Hi Donato, I have run Newport marathon twice in the past. In my experience of marathons and HM they normally measure long for me as you can never run on the true race line. I always try to run on the top of a camber not to hurt my hips especially on longer races. They decided to change the course this year to 2 laps of 13.1 miles to coin in on the ability to hold a HM race on the same day. This caused lots of controversy as there is a Newport HM in March hosted by a local cancer charity that has been run since 2013.
Thank you for sharing. i did wonder why they changed the course. Will you be back again next year?
Cheers Donato. GPS isn’t accurate but that is a side issue and totally unrelated to Newport.
I don't know why people make issues out of long courses at some races but ignore long courses at other events.
Course is 280 over - does it really matter and how many will this directly affect? If I was handed a revised time, I wouldn’t accept it because fractionally long courses happen, especially at low key events.
A SHORT course however is a different story. That is unacceptable.
An issue was made because people were short by very small time margins of GFA qualifying times for the London marathon entry.
This was a new route this year. Marathons will always run long on a gps watch but there were red flags this year. The marathon is run a lot by local every year and last year I recorded 26.39miles which is within error and expected. This year I recorded 26.55 miles and the extra distance seemed to be after 24 miles. Lots of runners were commenting that it was long compared to previous years and I think they looked into it as many of the pacers commented on it and struggled to get their pacing right. I think they should adjust all times not just gfa at London. This has been done before so it’s disappointing.
Thank you for taking the time to leave your valued feedback Joe, much appreciated.
I ran the Edinburgh half just over a decade ago, me and my friend went sub 2 and we were over the moon. We then found out the course was nearly 1km short. We just took the pb and never spoke about it 😁
Wow, Fraser, how did they miss a whole kilometer?!?!
The problem often is simply that the exact distance only works if you follow the exact same line around the course, if you deviate to the outside on a wide road then you're consistently adding distance, the course isn't wrong it's your racing line
Apparently a lot of the Newport route was narrow, so no room to deviate
@@PoetWithPace I don't believe that at all, unless nobody overtook anyone there's always space to deviate, just look at a 400m track and the outside lane which measures over 450m, even lane 2 is getting close to 10m extra, , it adds up so quickly, over a marathon distance that lane 2 would add an extra km
@@markcameron3 I’m only passing on the message from those who ran Newport last week
Those were the days, when 10km in 35 mins felt like a walk. 🙂
LOL
More value for money got to run a cheeky ultra 😂
I think Manchester was too long, first of all the gpx map I downloaded for pace pro on my Garmin told me I was 40mins behind pace in the first 2 miles, runners around me had similiar problem. So pace pro went out the window so paced to come in at 3:28 as best I could to do sub 3:30. After about 10 miles I noted lap on watch and mile markers were completely out by about 100mtres. I did the 26.2 in 3:27:53, but official race time was 3:29:58 for a 26.4. So I did do sub 3:30 and paced consistently at 7:56m/m. Annoyingly for v55 Boston qualifier is 3:35, but with 5:29 or so cut off time I am probably outside by seconds.
WOW! Thanks for sharing. If Manchester was measured wrong they would of admitted by now?
Totally agree. Plenty of FB and Strava comments that support this. Manchester measured 42.62 for me.
@@rodlambert1425 has there been a formal response from Manchester marathon organisers?
Thanks for that, Donato, very enjoyable. Good to hear that Newport was too long rather than too short and that times are being adjusted for London GFA qualification. Sorry to say that marathons usually seem a bit too long to me. By about six miles!
Yup, i find them 26 miles too long! LOL
Word is that the course was measured correclty but set up wrongly. The course measurer is taking the hit as it's a Run4Wales / Welsh Atthletics event
It is often the set up that is wrong, which is what also happened at Brighton "human error"
@PoetWithPace I think when they're trying to run multiple races rather than concentrating on doing one thing properly it's more likely to occur.
@@tworunningbrooms that is correct
It still remains a bit of a mystery to me where exactly, and how, a course is measured. When an official course measurer is brought in, do they follow the line demanded by the organizers or are they allowed to go where they think (on the course) Unless they mark where they have been on the course, how does the organizer or anyone else know the exact line ? Also, there can be a problem when things are being set up prior to or on the day. Barriers, cones and other infrastructure maybe set up by people who don't know the details of the course.
Some very good questions and as i am not qualified i would only be guessing. I would of hoped that they would of checked and rechecked in both directions?
Should be measured on the shortest route you could run on the day. That's why they have a line to indicate this in some big races like London Marathon.
@@TimGrose I've marshalled at many races and sometimes it's been a bit vague. What are the instructions for course measures as far as kerbs and other raised areas ? I think even if a race can't have a line on the road all the way, it would be good if there's some sort of marking at intervals.
@@TimGrose indeed the blue line in all marathon majors. The outrage on FB and Strava post Chicago when I was there was somewhat out of hand all believing the course was wrong. I think registered 44km 🤣🤣
Parkruns are notoriously inaccurate, some short, others long. If there's one I'm likely to do regularly, I usually take my Pro wheel along to measure it for myself. Wolverhampton & Cannon Hill are accurate, while Edgbaston Reservoir has always been long. It used to be long by 48 metres, then a gate was built near the start a few months ago making it even longer because we were told in the briefing that we had to run on a wide path around it on the two laps as the gap was too narrow to cater for the congestion of runners at the start. I thought that running the old way would have been allowed on Lap 2 when runners are more spread out, but they said NO. They don't seem too fazed that the course is long as it's 'not a race'.
I take back what I said about Cannon Hill being accurate. I was forgetting that this was before they changed the course in 2019 - it's actually around 30 metres long. Also, we run about 80 metres up a steep hill to finish on higher ground than where we started the run. This will obviously add many more seconds to the finish time. Contrary to this, Walsall has its Finish on considerably lower ground than where the race begins, which is why so many PBs are run there.