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Boston Globe
18-04-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Marathon mystery: Did I really run 27 miles?
But when I crossed the finish line, I had missed the mark. Badly. Official time: 4:04:04. According to my Garmin running watch, I had logged 27.13 miles, nearly an extra mile. Before you think I'm some outlier, my buddy Mike Barowsky traveled 27.39 miles, according to his Strava app. How had our glory, that we alone cared about, been snatched from us? Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Our tale of woe is far from unique. I've heard the same saga from many runners, in marathons and shorter races alike: Your app or watch tells you one thing, reality tells you another. It's a gut punch. Whoever says just running 26.2 miles is accomplishment enough regardless of the time either has never run a marathon or is annoyingly well adjusted. Advertisement The key to a marathon is pacing: You want to go out fast enough, but not too fast. My running watch should have been keeping me in check. But all it does is measure how long it takes you to run a given distance. If a marathon route is actually longer than 26.2 miles, hitting your targeted per-mile pace isn't going to lead to the finishing time you're aiming for. Or, if the watch thinks your miles are shorter or longer than they actually are, it's not going to display an accurate per-mile pace. Advertisement That means there are three possible culprits for my mishap in Philadelphia. Theory number one: My GPS watch failed me. Theory number two: I ran a highly inefficient race, making lots of unnecessary zigzags. Or number three: The guy who laid out the course had too much to drink that day and I really did run farther than 26.2. Here's why I like the last, albeit self-serving, theory. Many runners alongside me were caught in a similar timer panic, selling me on the idea that the Philly fix was in. Let's start there and work backward. 'Everything is subject to human error,' said Kathleen Titus, Philadelphia Marathon Weekend race director, when I asked her if a course mistake was possible. That said, her route is laid out by a certified course measurer who rides a bike the length of the course 'frontwards twice and backwards twice,' Titus said. The measurer uses a Jones Counter, a special bicycle odometer. The bike's tire pressure is checked to ensure accuracy. The course is Pretty airtight. Advertisement Well, of course Titus is going to defend her course! I reached out to THE running guru for countless amateur runners, Hal Higdon, author of the book 'Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide,' among other titles. He said the people who mark marathons are 'total nerds who would be insulted if somebody told them they didn't measure the course right. They totally focus on getting the exact measurement, not 2 inches off.' Higdon did say that on very rare occasions a police motorcycle leading the pack takes a wrong turn for a block or two. Or sometimes, when a volunteer puts down the cones, they mess up, more likely at a smaller, local race. When mishaps occur, however, social media is unforgiving. I couldn't find any complaints about my race, so as much as I want to, it's hard to blame Philly for my shortcoming. OK, next theory: I was the problem. Higdon, who has run 111 marathons, gave me a dose of tough love: 'You just need to look ahead.' 'Runners don't focus on what they're doing and have a tendency to wander,' said Higdon. Between bathroom breaks, high-fiving spectators, and getting water, 'We're sort of a group that's out of control.' For those who can stay in control, Boston College men's track and field assistant coach Then there are the turns that go right, then left. For those, you want to run 'the straightest line possible,' Titus said. 'Which is hard to do,' even for Titus, who has run more than 115 marathons. Advertisement Philadelphia has lots of turns. Add it all up, and of course I ran a bit long. Everybody does. But I probably didn't tack on nearly an entire extra mile, which leads me to ... Theory number three: My watch deceived me. When I look at the granular race data from my GPS mapping, it has me running through buildings, even doing a small 360-degree twirl. (I did not.) 'The GPS receiver in the runner's watch is not perfect,' said Joe Heikes, lead project manager with Garmin. 'There is always some noise in the position measurements.' When running between tall buildings, I believe the nontechnical term is that your GPS measurements go 'absolutely kablooey.' Heikes said tall buildings cause ' 'Even in the best of conditions, there is always a little uncertainty,' said Heikes. 'The receiver in your watch looks at all those satellite signals and thinks you are standing on 'X,' but you might actually be 40 centimeters or 10 meters away from 'X.'' The author's GPS watch recorded his route in the Philadelphia marathon with loops and zags he didn't actually take. Jason Margolis Multiply all those miscalculated centimeters over 26.2 miles, and it's no wonder things don't quite add up. Bottom line: I should have paid more attention, and adjusted, when the readout on my watch made it seem as if the race course's mile markers weren't in the right spots. In my defense, though, some of my fellow runners at the Philly Marathon were saying things were off, that the mile markers were approximations, and I figured they knew what they were talking about. And when I'm out on a suburban running path with mile markers, my watch is pretty close to perfect, so I put a lot of faith in it on race day. Advertisement In Philly, Titus said, there's also a 'dead zone' for a half mile, so your watch has no idea what's going on there. Then there's the fact that not all GPS devices are created equal. I have a midlevel watch, perfect for me, but lacking In Philadelphia, my buddy Barowsky used the Strava app on his phone, so I reached out to the company about what might have caused his errors. They directed me to a support article. It said, 'Things like GPS drift, GPS signal loss, or a 'jumpy' GPS track can also cause your activity to report more or less distance than you actually traveled.' So, what's a runner to do on race day? McGowan's advice: 'Don't let your watch take away from the amazingness of the event.' Others advised me to ask myself: Why am I doing this? For recreational runners, does anybody truly care about your time except you? (No.) Maybe if I can gear up for another 26.2 miler, I'll try a totally different approach: Ditch my watch, embrace zigzagging to high-five spectators, and just run for the sake of running. After all, as somebody once told me, the accomplishment of a marathon is just doing it. Advertisement Jason Margolis can be reached at
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Neil Featherby: Record-breaking runs and course accuracy
Prior to last Sunday's Norfolk Gazelles Valentine's 10K, Gazelles' chairperson Mark Thorpe posted on social media a question asking if there could be a new race record that weekend whilst also additionally posting a results page from what was the Sprowston 10k which took place just over 40 years ago in December 1984 and did indeed see several very fast times (winner Paul Magner 29:26). Well firstly, the Valentine's course record did go after what was a neck and neck battle between two brilliant athletes in peak condition – Cambridge & Coleridge ACs Nathan Mapperley in 1st place (30:25) and runner up Logan Smith (30:35) from the City of Norwich AC. The ladies course record also went with Holly Archer also from Cambridge & Coleridge crossing the finish line in 34 minutes and 11 seconds. However, Mark's earlier post resulted in world class Ironman and indeed awesome runner himself Joe Skipper making a comment saying the Sprowston course was probably short as were several smaller races back then. Needless to say, this brought a response from me as I was part of the organisation of that race and was involved with the course being measured accurately. In a nutshell, it was measured in the same way as courses are measured to this very day, which entails riding a bicycle with what is known as a Jones Counter attached to the front wheel. Air temperature and tyre pressure also being considered. The Jones Counter first came into use for road running course measurement as far back as 1971. Each course is also measured following what could be deemed as the shortest possible route for runners to take ie the potential to cut corners. The Sprowston 10k course was measured by Dr Max Speake who was an official course measurer at the time who travelled up from Suffolk after I made contact with him. I was always fascinated by course measurement myself even for training runs for which I had been given the job to ensure that the course was measured accurately. At the time I asked Max if I could run round while he measured the course, but he refused. However, he did allow me to cycle beside him as well as hold the tape measure to make sure the start and finish at Sprowston Hall were in the right places to ensure accuracy. Going back to Joe's comments, I can of course fully understand why some of today's athletes may think that a lot of courses going back 20, 30 and even more years were short especially with all of today's technical equipment. Nevertheless, and as already mentioned, despite all of today's GPS watches and techno, very little if anything has changed since the introduction of the Jones Counter. Prior to the Jones Counter, the Road Running Club of Great Britain would recognise course measurement by those done with a surveyor's wheel but particularly so to those also measured with a calibrated cycle wheel during the 1960s for which recognition had to go to the tireless efforts of John Jewell from the Road Running Club and American Ted Corbitt who were both fixated on ensuring that road running courses were accurate. John's extensive paperwork and research can still be found online. Where I fully agree with Joe though is that after the first London Marathon in 1981, there was a huge boom with road races springing up everywhere of varying distances whilst also being organised by all sorts of groups and organisations and even pubs which did not necessarily have full in-depth knowledge of the sport. In many cases they were just organised for fun and fundraising for charities for which some of the organisers were not concerned about accuracy. Athletes attached to affiliated clubs were advised not to enter into these races which may not only have been short in distance but at times well over distance too. I always made a point before entering a race of asking how the course was measured particularly after winning a 10-mile road race in 46 minutes. My immediate reaction when crossing the finish line was saying 'that was short!' I asked for an accurate remeasure and predicted it was about 15k. The course was remeasured, and I was right for which the following year's event was advertised as a 15k road race. After my response to Joe's comment, he responded with: 'I wonder what the winner of the Sprowston 10k would do today?' Well, Paul Magner (the winner) was indeed a class athlete (as were so many others in the race) with a 5k PB of 13 mins and 51 secs and ironically went on to work for Adidas and the development of their running shoes. Whilst I am sure that athletes from back in the day would have definitely run quicker with today's technology, back then we of course had better equipment, nutrition and science to what had gone before us. In other words, it is what it is and I am sure in 20 year's time, it will be the same thing ie today's athletes saying 'if only we had this back in our day'. I have said this many times before and it will always be hypothetical, but I do believe if the marathon stars of the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s had today's shoes (and science) they would be just as fast as the current world's best. How interesting would it be though to see some of today's elite turning out to race in shoes styled on those from 40 to 50 years ago so as to really see just how much difference carbon plated and fancy special foams make to what is a top end performance shoe? Incidentally, and whilst the Sprowston race saw seven, including the race winner, under 31 mins as opposed to just two at Valentine's, there really was not too much difference after that. In fact, the Valentines race had eight more sub 40 minute clockings ie 109 to 101. As for comparison between the ladies' race winners, the Sprowston race was won by England International Gill Settle who was at the top of her game at the time and she was actually one minute and 56 seconds slower than Holly's winning time of last week. At the end of the day and as Joe and the likes of Logan know – whilst today's technology is pretty substantial when it comes to performance, their success apart from their natural talent also comes from their commitment, dedication and huge desire to be the best they can possibly be.
