Friday, 21 November 2014

Scandal at the Scottish Half Marathon!

I knew it!*

I received official notification from the race organisers today that the Scottish Half Marathon on 6th September was TOO LONG! 

A whole 292.8 metres too long to be precise. 

*My running app had already indicated that I ran 21.4k rather than the standard distance of 21.1k, as you can see below. 




Ironically this became, and still remains, my Personal Best time for the Half Marathon and, of course, it's only natural to wonder what it might have been for 21.1k.

So I did a few sums....

Firstly I had to select a pace to use as the basis of my 'adjustment', and I narrowed it down to the following candidates.

Fastest Km (#1)    - 05:04 
Slowest Km (#15) - 05:34
Average Km          - 05:20
Final Km                - 05:13

I decided to use my pace during the final kilometre, because intuitively it is likely that I would be closest to this, even in a shortened finish. 

Converting this into seconds per km, and taking the percentage relative to the extra distance, I calculated that I could have finished the race 01:32 earlier if it was over the standard distance. This would give me a unofficial PB of 01:53:09.

Alas this is not my official PB, but it does give an indication of my potential. I now won't be satisfied until I get below that!

I've reproduced the official notification from the race organisers below. They're fixing it for next year, so maybe that's the occasion to set my PB in 2015.


Dear runner

The 2014 Scottish Half Marathon course was measured by an AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races) accredited course measurer. AIMS work with the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) to ensure the quality of road races worldwide and are the universally recognised organisation to work alongside when having any distance race measured.

Following a number of concerns that were raised about the distance of the 2014 course, I took the decision to have the course remeasured by a second AIMS accredited course measurer. This second measurement was completed in November 2014.

The findings of the second report concluded:

  • The course for the 2014 event was set up as per the original report
  • There were measurement errors made in the original report resulting in the route for the 2014 event being long by 292.8m.

In order to rectify this issue, the turnaround point between mile 5 and mile 6 has been adjusted for the 2015 event and moved back by 146.4m.

Both AIMS and myself apologise for the inaccuracy in the initial report which was undertaken by an AIMS accredited course measurer. This has fallen well below the standard normally set by AIMS and the standard we look to attain for the event.

I would like to thank you for your patience whilst I have been working hard to resolve the issue and would like to assure all runners that I will continue to work alongside AIMS and the IAAF to ensure that runners receive the highest standards when taking part in The Scottish Half Marathon.

Neil Kilgour
Race 

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