Course Measurement & Certification

If you’ve ever directed even a single race, there’s a good chance you would have received at least one email from a frustrated participant complaining about the distance they ran not matching your race advertised distance. They do have a GPS watch, you know.

And although it’s easy to jokingly dismiss these kinds of demands - most people do - there often is an uncomfortable point to the complaint: How do you know the actual distance of your race course, if it hasn’t been accurately measured and certified?

The answer, of course, is you can’t really know. In fact, if empirical evidence from professional course measurers offer any kind of hint, it is that your actual course distance is likely much more off the distance you advertise than you think - most likely much shorter than the advertised distance.

So what’s involved in getting your race course professionally measured and certified? Why don’t all the other methods we’re all familiar with, like drawing lines on a map or using a measuring wheel, work as well? And, at the end of the day, do participants really care whether your course is actually 10K rather than 9.8?

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, Matt Slocum of Precision Course Design. Matt, although a very accomplished runner, is a relative newcomer to the business of races, but what he lacks in industry mileage he more than makes up for in his dedication and obsession with the craft of course measurement. 

And with Matt’s help we’re going to be going behind the scenes of a race course measuring operation to look at how professional course measurement works, why most other DIY methods tend to underestimate the distance of a race course (often by a lot), and how investing a modest amount in professional course measurement can actually benefit your race for years to come.

In this episode:

• Do your participants care about an accurately measured course?
• What types of races is course measurement relevant for?
• The process of professional course measurement: how it all works
• Why the course you've measured yourself on a map is probably short
• Designing a road course to match the race distance you aim for in your event
• How course certification works
• The cost of measuring and certifying your race
• Making small changes to a certified course

To find a course measurer in your region, use the links below:

• USA: rrtc.net
• UK: coursemeasurement.org.uk
• Canada: athletics.ca

Many thanks to our podcast sponsors, RunSignup and Brooksee, for supporting our efforts to provide great, free content to the race director community:

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Brooksee are the timing technology industry-leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Find out more and get 50% off your timing for your next event at https://www.brooksee.com/headstart.

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Transcript

Panos: 0:07

Hi! Welcome to Head Start, the podcast for race directors and the business of putting on races. If you've ever directed even a single race, there's a good chance you would have received at least one email from a frustrated participant complaining about the distance they ran not matching your race advertised distance. Well, they do have a GPS watch, you know. And although it's easy to jokingly dismiss these kinds of demands - most people do - there often is an uncomfortable point to the complaint - how do you know the actual distance of your race course, if it hasn't been accurately measured and certified? The answer, of course, is you can't really know. In fact, if empirical evidence from professional course measurers offer any kind of hint, it is that your actual course design is likely much more off the distance you advertise than you think - most likely much shorter than the advertised distance. So what's involved in getting your racecourse professionally measured and certified? Why don't all the other methods we're all familiar with, like drawing lines on a map or using a measuring wheel, work as well? And, at the end of the day, do participants really care whether your course is actually 10K rather than 9.8? Well, that's what we're discussing today with my guest, Matt Slocum of Precision Course Design. Matt, although a very accomplished runner, is a relative newcomer to the business of races, but what he lacks in industry mileage he more than makes up for in his dedication and obsession with the craft of course measurement. And with Matt's help, we're going to be going behind the scenes of a race course measuring operation to look at how professional course measurement works, why most other DIY methods tend to underestimate the distance of a race course (often by a lot), and how investing a modest amount in professional course measurement can actually benefit your race for years to come. Before we get into this great episode, though, I'd like to give a quick shout out to the amazing sponsors supporting this podcast. Many thanks to RunSignup, race directors' favorite all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events, now powering more than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. And many thanks to Brooksee, the timing technology industry leader, bringing affordable real-time tracking and timing checkpoints to races with their patented iPhone-sized micro checkpoints. Two great companies we'll be hearing a bit more from later in the podcast. But, now, let's dive into our discussion on race course measurement and certification with Precision Course Designs, Matt Slocum. Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Matt: 2:47

Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Panos: 2:48

Well, thanks a lot for coming on. Remind me, I know you're based on the East Coast, but where exactly are you based again?

Matt: 2:54

I live in Montclair, New Jersey, which is just outside of Manhattan.

Panos: 2:58

Okay, awesome. And that's where Precision Course Design is based - your company - I guess.

Matt: 3:04

Indeed, yeah. We're a small operation. Yeah, we're based here.

Panos: 3:08

Do you want to tell people a little bit about Precision Course Design? I know you guys do course measurement and also consulting on course design as the name obviously states. But do you want to tell people a little bit about what you guys do and also how you came into the industry - a little bit of your backstory?

Matt: 3:25

Sure. So I'm a course geek. So a lot of things in the running industry seem to be kind of one-stop shops. Maybe an event management group can handle all aspects of a race. Precision Course Design is completely the opposite of that. It's courses only and what we do is we work with a lot of event management groups, we work with races, large and small. It was fun. I got to work on the NYC Runs, Brooklyn Half Marathon, measuring and being there on race day, and that was cool. There was a big race they had - I don't know - like 27,000 runners registered. I'll measure courses for races that only have 100 people too. So we work with all kinds of different races. I got into it during COVID because I was still training a lot then and I really value accurate courses, obviously, and there were no races. So I was 38 at the time. Clock was ticking. I wanted to run under two hours and 30 minutes in the marathon.

I had just run 2: 4:25

31 that fall, and it's like, well, I have all this time to train now with COVID, but it was like, "Well, I need accurate courses that I can run all out without stopping for intersections because the roads aren't going to be closed like a road race." And so I said, okay, let me hire a course measurer. I want 2 marathon courses, 2 half marathon courses, I want 10K, 8K, a couple of 5K's, all of that, and I reached out to someone named Jane Parks who was an absolutely incredible measurer and one of my mentors. She measured for the Olympic trials, World Championships, New York City Marathon. And she was like, "Look, I don't think you really understand what's involved in this or, like, this is this is a lot." Then I started learning about it and I got all the gear. One of the first things you have to do is make a calibration course - we can talk about that later. But I practiced on Jane Parks' courses. Another great measurer-- Dan Brannen measures for the New York City Marathon, Philadelphia Marathon until I was matching their measurements consistently and exactly. And then I measured my time trial courses, all of which are called beastmode - whatever distance. So it was just for that purpose. It was not any kind of commercial purpose or anything like that. But then, after COVID, I started getting these calls for these races and it turned into a whole thing with measurement and, now, a lot of consulting and design and course management on race day - basically, kind of creative solutions to how we're going to route things, there's always a lot of interested parties with a course, and figuring out how to do that and get the right distance. And it's cool because I love geeking out on all things courses,

Panos: 6:08

I'm pretty confident people are gonna pick up on the whole geeky thing, knowing you. Another thing I know about you, you have a very interesting side profession to course measurement that I think is quite unexpected. I've seen all kinds of combinations of things in the industry, like people doing timing and also having something completely different on the side, and people going into the industry with MBAs and all kinds of backgrounds, but yours is quite special. Do you want to tell people what you do on the side of course measurement - sort of the other hat you wear?

Matt: 6:41

I'm a musician. I'm a jazz musician. So I identify as that. For me, course measurement is the side, although I love both things equally but I actually love jazz a little bit more, I think. But both are complimentary. We're a small operation. I can only have to limit the number of events I can do every year because I work with students, and play my own gigs. Obviously, I can't go make a 1AM call time for an event after playing a gig the night before or you're kind of destroyed after that for a few days. So yeah, I'm a drummer. I think that's what was interesting to me as far as, like, sense of pace and timing. With this song, I was into that when I was training a lot too, trying to run even splits or negative splits, and I don't know. Even though they seem like very opposite-- course measurement is so exacting and it's like there's definitely a right or a wrong measurement whereas, in jazz, Miles Davis is saying, while there are no wrong notes, especially with the course design side of things, there's creative things and there's a lot of-- it's not just like going out and riding the bike around the block. There are always things that come up and creative solutions. So I think both.

Panos: 7:49

One might say they're complimentary. They sort of tick different boxes for you.

Matt: 7:53

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Panos: 7:55

So today, we're going to be talking about course measurement and certification and it's a topic - admittedly another one - that we should have covered probably ages ago. There's definitely lots of interest around these kinds of questions in our race directors group on Facebook, Race Directors Hub, some of which you've seen. So there's lots of stuff that people are discussing, a lot of questions around, "Do I need to certify my course? What's in it for me?" I do it on Map My Run. What's the difference? And all of these kinds of things. So we're gonna get into these and try and give people some facts and dispel some myths around measurement. Who is it for? What might I be doing wrong? All of that kind of stuff. And also, we're going to look briefly towards the end of the discussion at course certification, which is a different kind of thing and also maybe touch on course sanctioning, which is yet a different thing to both of those. So that's sort of roughly the structure. And the way I'd like to start on course measurement is a very important question I find with all of these things that involve cost for race directors, as course measurement does, which is why is it important? What's the value? What is course measurement bringing to the table for me, the race director?

Matt: 9:16

So I think that great race directors are always looking for, like you said, cost-effective ways to enhance the quality and reputation of their events. And sometimes, I think it's sort of assumed that USATF certification is not within their budget or that it's a really complex process. But when I work with these clients, what they find is that it's actually one of the smallest aspects of a budget because, of course, it's good for so long. You can have a 10-year lifespan or a 5-year lifespan. The other thing that seems to be a real eye-opener once you certify is how inaccurate any of these other measurements or methods of measurement are - digital mapping GPS. So, for instance, last year, I did, like, 85 courses, every single one, and this includes race directors who are drawing freehand tangents, etc. Every single one that was not a recertification, every single one that they had mapped or done with GPS was short. So what I would say is, I guess-- what they normally respond is,"Well, close enough." Maybe we start with a question then. What would be close enough as far as distance or time for your runners if you have a 5k or half marathon? And then with that in mind, you can see. I won't reveal, like, what it normally is right now but maybe we'll get into that a little later.

Panos: 10:36

I can definitely see-- you always see every month for a couple of months, a race in the news about it being way too short or way too long and people being really unsatisfied because they chose to run a PR and the race threw them completely off. There's all kinds of complications when there's, like, significant deviation. And as you say, we're gonna get into the actual sort of comparisons with what you might do if you don't choose to do professional course measurement. There's always going to be some deviations of small magnitude. But in terms of the actual upside in course measurement, I can see kind of the liability mitigation aspect of it, which is to say, I advertise a 5k, I better have something close to a 5K. Right? And as you say, close to is not really a black-and-white thing, but what's the upside? How should it be sold to race directors - like the positive aspect of having a correctly measured course?

Matt: 11:39

It's interesting because there are not as many, like, scientific studies on this as I'd like to see. When you see people on both sides, saying, like, "Oh, well, none of the runners even care" or other people saying, "Well, they all care. That's why I certify." There's a course measurer, Gary Brumley, TX Course Works, he did some interesting polling. North Texas Runners Corner is a big group with over 7000 members on Facebook. Over 75% of them said that a course with an inaccurate distance would negatively affect their decision to return to that event the following year. So I think we can agree a positive participant experience is essential if you're looking at a successful race. So I think it's part of that. The other thing a lot of race directors tell me is that it gives a race a sense of legitimacy. People look at the advertising. If it's in the listing, USATF-certified course, it makes you look good, it makes your sponsors look good, and it's such a small expense. It attracts more runners. He had some other percentages here. Over 25% of the runners that he polled said they would be unlikely to register for an event that does not have a certified course. Now, I think some people might not even know what certified means or USATF means but, as far as accurate-- the other thing that comes up with this is it protects you as a race director because, no matter what, you're gonna get comments that your course was long or short. If you get those comments and your responses,"Well, I mapped it out on Plot a Route or I mapped it out with my Garmin," then maybe the runners are the ones bringing to you this issue of course certification and the inaccurate distances, if you can just point to a certified course, the issue's resolved. There's no back and forth. There's no adversarial anything. It's a team effort. It's a win-win. This is, hey, I just learned about this myself with the certification. This is how it was measured. Here's a link to their statement on why your GPS device might have these different readings and you'll see these at more and more-- it doesn't have to be big events - statements on inaccuracies of GPS and all of this. But if it's not professionally measured, if it's not certified, then you don't have that, you don't have a leg to stand on. But if you do- and I'm not trying to shame anybody in the certifying - if you're a charity race and you have 10 participants or something like that, just don't advertise it as the distance because, as we'll get into later, you don't want to open that door. That's my personal opinion.

Panos: 14:19

If you've spent any time in our race directors group I mentioned, there's always some race director, from time to time, posting about some runner going to them and saying, "Oh, my GPS watch showed me this" kind of thing. I mean, it's a running joke kind of thing in the industry that every race director has to deal with - the odd runner or odd runners who come out at the end of the event and say, "Oh, can you change my time because my GPS watch said I run this or whatever." Yeah, so definitely having that-- I agree that it's not something I've thought of before that, if you don't have a professionally measured course, according to what our industry considers to be the professional way of doing it, it's sort of your word against theirs kind of thing. I mean, they bring their GPS watch, you bring your Map My Run or whatever, and then it's not really a definitive sort of resolution to what the distance from the course is.

Matt: 15:15

Look, I'm just an observer in this regard but it seems like it's not a good look - you going back and forth with your participants.

Panos: 15:22

Do you have any sense of what percentage of races get professionally measured?

Matt: 15:28

I think that's very regional. So where I'm based, our markets are New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia. So the fact that I get spoiled with getting to do so many of these courses is that the expectation here is that a serious race is certified - even running groups, Prospect Park Track Club, Queens Distance Runners, Shore Athletic Club, Garden State track - here, it's much higher. I think there are areas in the US where it's much lower. But you could use that to your advantage. To make a little restaurant analogy or something, to make the argument that the runners don't know the difference or something, that's like watering down the drinks at a restaurant. And some of them are still going to travel or experience that and they'll know even if they're not, "Well, I haven't had any complaints." That's not the standard. If you're a restaurant, you don't wait to get complaints. You're proactive. So it's something that can make you look good. It's very inexpensive once you space it out over the lifespan of a course. And again, my personal approach is, like, whether you certify or not, that's totally your call. You could not certify it. But I think where the real issue arises is when you don't certify and then you try to portray it as an accurate course.

Panos: 16:42

So would you say that, then, all races should be professionally measured? Or could it be the case that there are some types of races-- and we're excluding fun runs here which sort of take the route of I'm not advertising a distance, whatever. But do you think that it's equally important for all types of races to be professionally measured? For instance, trail runs. Do you think those should be professionally measured or other types of events like obstacle races? Which race in your opinion is more important or more relevant to obtain professional measurement?

Matt: 17:16

Okay, that's an awesome question because this totally affects the lenses that people are viewing things through. So RRTC, which is short for Road Running Technical Council-- and for, like, a bunch of geek-out details, their website is rrtc.net. So it's road running. That's really what we're doing. As far as a wilderness adventure race, do your best. But with the methods that we're dealing with, these are very specific to road race courses. That's not to say that you can't have portions of hard-packed dirt or gravel in the course. You could even have an entire course on that if the path is clearly defined, not like somebody mowed the grass eight feet further from the tree this year and another year. Cross-country courses-- like that's not really something that we do. So this is specifically in the realm of road races. And this is interesting because once you're in this realm, it's a specific realm and it's a sport. So just like if you were playing softball, or whatever, there's a certain distance from the mound. And because of that, we're able to get accurate distances and we're able to compare times from course to course. It's not just course-specific. And that's another thing participants had mentioned that they're looking for because they want to be able to compare their time on your course with other professionally measured courses. Now, obviously, okay, this course had a hill or whatever. But certification gives us consistency. That's why we can have world records on the road. There are no cross-country world records. The only thing that you can have is course records on a specific course. And even then, it could be kind of like, "Well, where was the flag this year?" or something.

Panos: 18:55

But you're saying that even gravel races, for instance, can receive professional measurement and certification - like a gravel course?

Matt: 19:03

There are courses that are like that, yeah, like, on a toe path and stuff like that. In that situation, it just needs to be hard-packed, because these measurements are done using a very specific bike device that we'll talk about later that's on a bicycle. So the bicycle wheel can't be, like, sinking into the surface and stuff like that. Also, you need a calibration course, which we'll talk about later, that matches the surface that you're going to be measuring on because you will get different measurements if you calibrate on pavement and then you go measure on dirt, gravel, whatever. You can't have, like, ruts and stuff like that in there too. You could have a few-- you'd even have sections of grass. Like, look at the finish of Beach to Beacon 10K. But those sections are measured with steel tape and they need to be clearly defined. But those are exceptions, not the norm.

Panos: 19:53

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Matt: 21:51

Sure. I feel like any conversation in this regard should start with reference to the great Ted Corbitt. So many of you already know Ted Corbitt represented the US at the 1952 Olympic Marathon, founding president of New York Road Runners, nicknamed the father of long-distance running, at least in the US. He could also be described as the father of course measurement in the US because this process that he developed along with John Jewell and the UK and others is really still in use today. And I love the lineage between measurers being passed on because you have Ted Corbitt, you have a measurer name, David Katz working directly with Ted Corbett. David Katz has been there measuring the Olympics ever since LA 1984. He just measured Paris 2024. David Katz, Jane Parks, Dan Brennan, these are the measurers that I'm working towards that level of greatness, so I love that lineage in there. So there's a history to it. I mean, I know I'm close to New York, so maybe I have blinders or whatever, but it really is in the US, centered around New York and New York Road Runners. Here's a quote from Mr. Corbitt. He said the real prizes or rewards for most long-distance runners are the times they record at various distances. To make recorded times meaningful, road racing courses should be accurately measured. Man insists on measuring time (easy to get accurately) and distance(difficult to get accurately) for comparison purposes. Athletes and fans assume that the correct distance of the race course is the advertised distance and they relate timed results not only with past performances on the course but to times made on other courses of the same distance. Road race sponsors can do a great service for the sport by accurately measuring the course. But to get into the specifics of what he developed - and I'm not to get too much in a historical thing - some people would describe the 1984 LA Olympic Marathon as like, really-- when all these measurers got together and kind of geeking out and comparing notes and really kind of standardized what was happening in US - it was happening before that with Ted Corbitt, with David Katz, with Ken Young. But there was a process where all the courses were basically short- like way short. They would be measuring them in cars and things like that. My understanding of this-- and, again, going to David Katz to get the direct information would be your best source. But my understanding of this is there was a transition period. But now, these days, a course cannot be short. It has to be at least advertised distance. But then because they were all so short, they had kind of a transition period. So it could be, like, X amount short. So that's what came up in 1981 New York City Marathon, Alberto Salazar-- like, this was a huge thing and it's kind of a gray area. Like, was the chorus short? My understanding is maybe it was short by the methods that we've agreed upon now. But during that transition period, maybe it was okay. But we didn't even have world records until like 2003 because everything had to be standardized. So at that time, it was world best and yeah. So by 1984, LA Olympics, things are getting more locked in as far as course measurement and, basically, what makes this way superior to anything else-- and I'm a complete Google Earth geek too, I love it, I'm aware of the ability to draw tangents and if you really want to draw hundreds and thousands of them, you can often get pretty close. But what makes this better than all of that is the calibration. So what you start with is you need a straight calibration course - paved, flat, needs to be at least 300 meters, it's measured with steel tape. That measurement is adjusted for temperature. You need to measure it twice. They both have got to be within, like, an inch. A calibration course is your bread and butter because, at least four times before and four times after every measurement, it's going to be calibrated. So it's like, "Well, whatever. My bike odometer - I'll just go measure on that." No, that's based on the circumference of your wheel which changes all the time based on temperature and other factors- road temperature, and tire pressure. So calibrating before, calibrating after as a reference point to make sure you didn't have any slow leak or anything like that. This is specific to that moment and you don't want your calibration course to be too far away from where you're measuring either. You need to kind of match the conditions. So that precedes and follows every measurement. We measure with something that's called a Jones counter and it's mounted on the front axle of a bicycle and it measures counts. So for me, Jones countermeasures about normally 17,350 counts per mile. Again, it varies with temperature every day, like we said, because temperature and tire pressure change. Jone's counter has to be calibrated at least four times before and after. Then, after you calibrate, then you go out and you measure the course. Sometimes, it's really never as easy as just like-- because the start and finish are never exactly where you think they're going to be, unless you have a turnaround point or something. Even that can get wild though because maybe there's a median and you have to put a turnaround point and circle it. Then you do the measurements. Sometimes, it's done continuously. Sometimes, it's done in segments. Sometimes, it's done over multiple days. But the entire course needs to be measured twice. That could be by the same measurer. If you're dealing with something like police escorts and measuring in a major metropolitan area, sometimes you have two measurers or even more than that - sometimes three at the same time and that's where you get your two measurements. And then you come back, you post-calibrate. I'll answer some more questions, but that's the basic process.

Panos: 27:26

Let me just try and summarize. So you go out to the course, you find the calibration courselette around there somewhere that needs to be at least 300 meters long. Okay, you calibrate your equipment, you adjust for temperature, all of that kind of stuff, because things expand, contract, or that kind of stuff. And then you go out on the course and you do two measurements - either in one go or-- obviously, we have, like, a 100-kilometer bike course or something. You may need to do this over a number of days. And then those two measurements, are they averaged? Do you take the longer one, the shorter one? What do you do with them?

Matt: 28:05

So first off, those measurements need to be very, very tight - 0.08%, which is four meters over five kilometers. And if you had a four-meter difference, that's really not very good in my opinion. You want to be within, like, one or two. You take the one that's going to yield the longer course. So let's say, measurement one is going to be-- I measure my course and I drop it where, okay, this is 5K, 5,000 meters. Measurement two, I get 4,099 meters. Okay, I need to make an adjustment to the start or the finish line or at the turnaround point to add one meter because measurement two was a little bit tighter. Because our standard now is that the course must be at least the stated distance, there is something called short course prevention factor which is built into every certified measurement. This is equal to one meter per kilometer. So you don't just add it at the very end. It's built into your constant on the Jones counter.

Panos: 29:04

Yeah, when you actually use the Jones Counter, you're sort of measuring things long by construction a little bit. You have to have a little bit of a margin in there so that you're never short - I guess it's what you're trying to prevent.

Matt: 29:18

Right. So let's say for instance, I did my calibration and it averaged out where I was going to be, let's say, 10,500 counts per kilometer. Okay. Then once I add the short course prevention factor, I'm at 10,510.5. So in that situation, I'm going to multiply that by five, I'm at 52,552.5 counts for five kilometers. I'm going to round that up - not a partial count - and that's how many counts that you need in total. That course might be-- you might do it straight through. You might do it in segments but that's what you need to hit.

Panos: 29:55

I'm guessing, by the nature of this, you do a lot of work during the night. Like, if it's an actual road course that goes out into open traffic, you can't be doing that during the day, can you?

Matt: 30:10

No, it's not a good idea. I mean, sometimes you can-- if you have police escorts, sometimes they dictate when that's going to happen. Like NYPD - sometimes the measurement is going to be at 10 or 11 AM on a weekday after traffic, and you're going to have two cars there - they're going to protect you and you're going to do it and maybe even have a van with flashes behind you. But when I measure in Central Park or I measure in Prospect Park, those are done at night. Some measurers prefer to start at, like, I don't know, maybe 10 or 11 and work until-- I prefer to start there at like 2, 2.30 and then try to get out of there by, like, 5. But in some courses, you need natural light because you need to see long tangents. So it depends. For those, maybe you want to get out there on a Sunday morning, really early. And maybe for small neighborhoods and stuff like that, maybe I can do it on my own. Or maybe sometimes the race director comes out and runs flashers just to help protect the measurer.

Panos: 31:02

That was about to be my next question actually. Is this a one-person job? How many people are doing this at any one time?

Matt: 31:11

It depends. So most are one or two. Two is normally a situation where, like, if you're gonna get NYPD and they're gonna come out, and they're not going to do it for free, it's probably going to be more cost-effective for you to have to measures there right then and just do it rather than one measurer taking more time coming back and having to do the course twice. It's normally situations like that where you have two-- or long distances like a marathon unless somebody just really has a ton of time on their hands. Sometimes it's just easier to go out there and get it done with two riders. But for, like, a local 5K, I pretty much do those as one person. But there are times when I'll hire a second measurer too for more involved courses.

Panos: 31:56

And the procedure you just outlined is, as you mentioned, sort of understood in the industry, sort of written in stone, right? It's what you need to do, like, a professional measurement and subsequently get certified. Right? It has to be done this way.

Matt: 32:11

Yeah. And I agree with Mr. Corbitt, I agree with this process because the alternative methods which maybe we'll discuss are-- there's so much room for error. So this has so many cross-checks built in. And when you're talking about courses not measuring up or whatever, normally, those are course setup errors, not course measurement errors or they just never certify the course in the first place and they just-- you know what I mean. That's normally the situation. But yeah, this is the process. Like anything else, people are looking for shortcuts like - no pun intended - mapping it or,"Well, I just want it accurate. It doesn't have to be certified." For me, personally, for it to be accurate, I'm gonna use this process. I want two measurements. It's like what do you want to do? You want me to just ride it once and you don't want it certified? You just want to say like, "Yeah, it's not certified, but my buddy Matt went out there and took a ride on it." Like, that's not worth it for me. Like, let's let's do it twice. You can advertise it. It makes your event look good. At that point, at the end of the measurement process, if you want to say like, "Well, yeah, don't certify it." Yeah, there's some paperwork involved in the certification but-- I mean, look, you're like at mile 26 in the marathon. Let's just push through and cross the finish line. You can do it. Yeah. So those are my thoughts on accurate versus actually certifying. I think, sometimes, just the name USATF certification has, like, a formality or unfamiliarness to it. But really, that's just accurate course measurement is how I would think of that.

Panos: 33:40

Yeah, we'll talk a little bit more about the certification in a minute because there are different organizations involved and it'd be nice to just get into the details of that a little bit more in a sec. I just wanted to touch a little bit on the very contentious topic of alternative measurement methods. We all know what they are, right? I mean, I took the car around the course. I use the measuring wheel or I map everything on Plot a Route or Map My Run or pick-your-favorite kind of mapping tool. Having discussed the proper process and what's involved and how you're trying to control for a million different things, I think we can see why these may be perhaps less strict or less accurate or less standardized than the professional measurer. Let's start with how much off can this really be. There's people who have their own thoughts about how close they can get with Map My Run and I just wanted your opinion, from experience also, because I'm sure you go to courses and, before you do the actual measurement, someone has done the Map My Run or the GPS watch or the measuring wheel or the car. So how far off are these? I think you mentioned earlier that they're mostly short. How far short are they compared to the professionally measured course?

Matt: 35:03

The response that you're gonna get on this is close enough or just because it's not certified doesn't mean that it's not a 5K. And they're going to try to typecast the course measurer as somebody who's just obsessed with, like, oh, it's six inches off. Look, that is not the case at all. So, what would you consider to be acceptable? I'm just kind of curious. Let's say you were race directing a 5K and you're a charity, and it's a first year. How close would you think would be okay?

Panos: 35:32

I think that it's funny that you mentioned it. My kid's school run does a family thing every year and, actually, runs a 5K which almost definitely wasn't professionally measured-- I don't know what the distance is. I guess, by definition, my GPS watch showed like 5.1, which is way off. If I thought that a course was like really more than 10 meters off, I would consider that to be a lot over a 5k - over a 5K, 10 meters, I would think, like, it's a lot because 10 meters, if you convert that into time, and again, you're thinking of how do I compare my performance to another 5K, etc, 10 meters is, like, a few seconds, right? I mean, you don't want to be, timewise, further off than that. That's how I would think about it.

Matt: 36:22

Okay, yeah, I'm interested because that's-- and I enjoy, like, trying to just be an observer in these conversations because I'm not trying to sway anyone one way or the other but just present information. And I'll put it this way, the average half marathon that I get from a race director mapped out is-- again, this depends on the course, it depends on how many curves are on the course, and it depends on the skill of the race director who most of the time is going to tell you that, "Well. Despite the fact that, like, all your other courses are way short, I'm great at mapping this and mine's right on." Not always the case but, a half marathon, like half a mile, which is four to five minutes for the average finisher-- so let's take that down to 5K. Most are three miles, give or take. So I think the distance between three miles and five kilometers is, like, 172, 173 meters, something like that. So not 10 meters. I just had a course that I did for a great event management group, a top event management group, and they had gone out and scouted it beforehand. They had two GPS - separate people's GPS - readings on the course. They've done it a couple of times. It was 500 meters short. And I mean, that was kind of a lot but three miles-- but then the response after that is, like, "Well, yeah, then just add point one. Just just add point one when you map it. Or just to clarify, we're nowhere within 10 meters here. Not even close." Okay, so you could add point one and, depending on some courses, maybe that will get you in the ballpark, you could also make it long and then your participants would be mad, maybe, or maybe you wouldn't hear from them and maybe you assume that because you didn't hear from them that they were okay with it. That's certainly one approach but the race directors that I'm working with that I see running successful, long-term events are coming from that mindset. They're proactive and they want the runners to have a good experience, and they want to give them an accurate course. And as soon as they understand, if they come on out on a ride and they see the difference-- I remember, last year, I did this course with somebody who's super involved with USATF, he's going in, he's drawing this super tight, and I was like, "Look, can we just--" Because what we do is we have contingency plans for where we need to add the distance because they're always short. I did not have a single one. The closest one I ever had was a woman who drove it in her car and I called her afterwards. I was like, "How did you do this?" She's like, "Well, I drove, like, 3.2 or 3.3 because I thought I might need it." You just nailed it. That was insane. But I've never had a digitally mapped one or GPS one that wasn't short. And we're not talking 10 meters, we're talking a lot. Again, not trying to shame anyone into the certification. It's not as accurate as you think it is. I'm the one who goes out there and measures it after these alternative methods and I'm not saying this, there are no judgments, but this is what it is. It's science. It's short every time. And you can even notice that because we wear a GPS watch while we're measuring, and this is as we're measuring the shortest possible route out there. Even then, the watches I was going to click at the split before you get there on the Jones Counter. The exception would be maybe, because of watches affected even by inside wrist or outside wrist on curves, among other things. So if you had a loop where it was all counterclockwise and the watch was on your left hand that would be the only exception I've had or if your signal just was terrible. So it really depends on the course but, on average, a 5K is around three miles, give or take, that they've mapped it out. When you start getting those longer distances, it's really a big impact on finishing time. And when you make the charity argument which I totally understand because I work with a lot of charities, I support a lot of charities, I get it. I get that. It's like, Well, somehow, I don't know how course measurement or certification became, like, the thing to, like, yeah, maybe I could just cut on this, but I need my sweet medal, I need my T-shirts, and there gotta be, like, 80,000 bananas at the finish line. But my recommendation is, like, the course is the foundation of your event and I think it's a basic courtesy. I think we would agree on this because people are trying to get an accurate course. As a basic courtesy to your participants to provide that they're paying you money to participate in this event, we're trying to get an accurate course. And I think, if most race directors understood how inaccurate it really is with any of these other methods, this question would not even be up for discussion, like when to certify, when not to certify. And I don't think that people are trying to be misleading - I mean, maybe some event or whatever but that's not the majority. But it's not accurate. Just describe it as a charity event. This is a fun run. This is not a competitive event. It's approximately this distance. You don't even have to pick 5K or 10K. Say we're going to run one loop around the park. Save thousands of dollars on the timing company too. If your mission is to raise money for the event and you don't have the upfront, then maybe that's what you need to do. Otherwise, you're coming into a world of sport. Road running is a sport and it's misleading to only identify it as people who-- even if you identify as people who want to just complete a distance, they want to know that that distance is actually completed. If you go to this guy's TX Course Works website, he's got all these quotes because even if they're not running for time, they feel short changed that they didn't run the full distance.

Panos: 41:52

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Matt: 44:11

Yeah, it depends. So this is a lot of what I do - working with clients to try to find ways to make this possible through creative solutions. Start and finish in the same point can actually be really cool if you're approaching them-- let's say you're starting running north and you're coming back running south. Assuming you have some flexibility where you're going to drop that, it's cool because we can tailor the distance on whatever we need like a block is a big move or maybe there's not even that many streets, but it gives some flexibility. Now, if you think you're going to start running north and come and have a shared finish where you're also approaching it running north, that's not going to happen without-- or it's basically never gonna happen without a turnaround point because a loop is never going to be a perfect five kilometers or something like that.

Panos: 44:56

Exactly. So you get into all of these kinds of things, I guess, that further complicate the process which, as you say, is where you guys come in, sort of, consulting on course design?

Matt: 45:07

And I guess I should say that it depends on the measurer. This is something that I do. I have a company that does this. We do design and consulting. But some measurers just measure - you know what I mean - where they would help you out a little bit. It depends. Each one is an independent contractor and you can find out more about the measurers in your area on rrtc.net. You can find a state certifier. You can search that site by final signatories. Those are measurers that you pretty much know are going to be solid. You can search by World Athletics accredited measures - I also recommend that - and, of course, like, recommendations and stuff in your area.

Panos: 45:44

So let's talk about the certification process. Okay? So you get the measurement. What happens? You take that measurement to USA Track and Field or some other certifying body and you say, "Here's my official measurement. Please certify my race."?

Matt: 45:59

Yeah. The course measurer is going to organize all of the data. They are going to make you a very detailed map. So you can find all of these locations relative to permanent landmarks with detailed descriptions. I think the map is like a big plus with this too because it gives you something that you can give to all of your volunteers or your staff and it's very clear. I mean, I guess you could always make your own or whatever, but that's a big part of the process. And then, it goes to the state certifier. Unless someone is themselves the certifier or is the final signatory, it's approved there. Then it goes to the Vice Chair East or the Vice Chair West. They look through it. It's got to be approved there. And then, it goes to the registrar - uploads it to the database of certified courses. This sounds like a lot of stuff but all the course measurers I know are, like, very cool and they make it very easy for you - like, they take care of this. And then, it's in the database of certified courses. Generally, if you get a World Athletics accredited measure, that course will automatically be World Athletics certified too, which is good for 5 years instead of USATF certification is valid for 10 years.

Panos: 47:09

And why is there, like, an expiry at all on these things? If the course doesn't change, why would I have to redo this after five or 10 years?

Matt: 47:20

Because there are subtle changes especially if you're talking World Athletics courses. Even just changes to a curb or an island, about half of the recertifications that I do need to be adjusted because things have changed in 10 years. I did one for the founder of RunSignup, Bob Bickel, and that was a recertification, and the curb widths-- we were crushing it. We got to mile one. We were within, like, one count, which is less than four inches. We got to mile two, we're still crushing. We get to this kind of windy section. There were major changes in curb widths that affected the overall course distance, not like two feet, more than 10 meters. That's kind of the thinking. It's not like a racket or anything like that, especially 10 years is a lot. I think there's a reason why World Athletics does 5. Yeah, that's why they do it. And some of them-- I just did one on Monday and it checked out great. Nothing had changed and it was a Jane Parks' course and it was right on. We were lined up. There's one thing I forgot to address earlier when we were talking about alternative measuring methods - measuring wheel. Okay, I would describe it as maybe, like, your least worst option. And for a cross-country course or something like that, I think it's great. Like, you're trying to get as accurate a distance that you can. For road races, it's not going to be as accurate. First off, measuring wheel is only calibrated once in its lifespan. We're calibrating four times before and four times after every measurement. Okay, so maybe you build a calibration course and you calibrate your measuring wheel, there is so much walking to actually take the shortest possible route. This is what we're talking about with tangents, which is part of why runners' watches are reading long and, of course, is almost physically impossible to do sometimes with the measuring wheel. It depends on the course. If you're walking around a park path, maybe it's okay but if you're on a county road and you've got a 500 meter tangent, I'd rather do that on a bike on a Sunday at 5 AM than try to walk the wheel on it. So you're going to walk the whole thing and then you're going to do it twice and then calibrate. And the other issue with a measuring wheel is that it's subject to fatigue as you push it through the course. So it's going to wobble and you're going to run into greater error like that, even if it was calibrated. So I just wanted to address that one too. And obviously, we kind of touched on car and bicycle odometers - those are not calibrated. You have major changes in tire pressure. And a car - there's no real, like, safe way to measure the shortest possible route. The other thing with a bicycle odometer is, like, if it's just measuring one rotation of your tire, that could be seven feet. A Jones counter has, I think, 23 point something counts per revolution. So sometimes you're stopping and measuring in segments. You kind of need all of those details in addition to the calibration and riding the shortest possible route.

Panos: 50:16

Let's talk about cost for a moment. You mentioned at the top of the podcast, this is not an expense that amortized over the 5 or 10 year period that these things are valid for, that it is particularly egregious. And I know that the answer to all of these things is it depends. And obviously, listeners will also understand that it depends on the type of course, the length, etc, but I like to give people a rough figure of the magnitude we're talking about here. So is that something you can shed some light on, roughly, what kind of cost we're looking at?

Matt: 50:54

Sure. So for me, personally, I don't have a table or flat rates for distances because every course is different. There could be a turnaround point, there could be design involved, or whatever. And I don't want to speak on behalf of other measurers because they're independent contractors but you can find this information even on your Facebook group. There are references in the comments to what other race directors have paid for measurements and things like this. I think a lot of this is also regional. And, of course, a marathon is going to be more expensive than a 5K. I'll put it this way. In general, if a certified course gets you one to two more participants per year which, I mean, it should if you advertise it. I mean, this is part of your toolbox. I'm not saying only do this and don't have sponsors and don't have Instagram and Facebook. But if you use this properly, it makes you look good and it's going to attract more runners. You don't want to just exclude runners who are running for personal bests from your event. The cost works out to one or two participants per year that you would need to add, generally speaking,

Panos: 52:03

Interesting. Okay, because, also, I guess registration fees also scale with distance. So I guess you're saying that, for most courses, it's going to be around the cost of a couple of entry fees per year?

Matt: 52:16

Yeah. And again, these are the restrictions I'm working with and I like working with researchers who are excited about the certification and they see the benefits of it. It's a no-brainer because they're making money on it.

Panos: 52:30

And then the certification - is there a cost associated with that on top of the measurement fee?

Matt: 52:36

Basically, my understanding is most course measures will just build that into whatever their fee is. It's very minimal. They might have to pay a small fee to the state certifier, maybe $25 and then a small amount - even smaller than that - goes to elsewhere, but it's not a major cost.

Panos: 52:57

You're not paying a fee to USA Track and Field for the certification?

Matt: 53:02

No, that would be, like, for sanctioning. And, again, when we're talking about course certification, we're really dealing with the accuracy of the course. And this is not an annual expense. If you were to sanction your event, which is for a lot of events that deal with insurance, you can get insurance through USATF also if you have any runners who are going to run Olympic Trials qualifying times or run any age group records, which is happening kind of more and more right now. It needs to be sanctioned for those to actually be accepted. And what sanctioning is - that is something that goes through USATF. It's basically more like a permit from the governing body which, in the United States, is USATF that says a competition will take place according to the rules of the sport and the event will meet safety guidelines of the governing body. It can have to do with event insurance. And yeah, it's a different world than dealing with course accuracy. But sometimes, it's confusing for race directors because it's, like, USATF certification and USATF sanctioning. Certification pertains to the course. Sanctioning pertains to the event.

Panos: 54:18

Right. Okay. So just to summarize, you have measurement which course measurer comes out, they measure the course professionally, then certification is you take all of that stuff from the measurer and then the course gets certified by getting added to the certified measured professionally type of courses - that's certification. And then if you want to have a race that's run according to USA Track and Field standards, it's eligible for a bunch of stuff, etc, that's the sanctioning bit?

Matt: 54:47

Right. Right. And that sanctioning, that's a different world. There is an annual fee. I don't know that much about that. That's not my world. My world is course geekdom.

Panos: 54:56

Last very important question back into course geekdom territory, if I have a certified course and there needs to be, like, a last-minute change to it or something which happens actually, I guess, more often than people may think - which is there's a traffic diversion, the city calls me up, we can't go through this road, we have to go through that road- what happens in that case? Are there contingencies? Are there sort of alternative measures that I can try? Or what do I do? Do I need to recertify, remeasure the course? What happens in those cases?

Matt: 55:30

Yeah, this is a really good question. Okay. So because this just came up, like, two weeks ago, the day before the event, we did a backup course in case they needed police access to an area just for one road. So you can do these-- it has to be approved - it's called a course adjustment. It's not something where issues happen with this. It's like if the race director just goes out there and tries to do something, a lot of times, there can be problems. So it has to be approved - who's going to do the adjustment - but definitely doable. It happens a lot. Sometimes, when you go out there, there's an alternate course that's done in the first place. But most of the time, you don't need to remeasure the whole course. And this could also come into play for people who are, like, well, I don't really want to certify this. I'm just trying out this course or something like that. If you have elements that are going to be common, you can build it around that and do adjustments as long as you're-- either it's the original measurer that you have do the adjustment or it's someone who's approved with your state certifier.

Panos: 56:29

So you're saying that these adjustments, they go into the certification database as part of the--

Matt: 56:35

Yes. It has to be in there with an effective date of the day of the event. That doesn't mean it has to be uploaded to the database. It just means that certification materials were received on that day and then you're good. You can still have qualifying-- like, if it happened at a marathon and you wanted to be a Boston qualifier. This is a reason why a lot of races-- and this is obviously maybe cost prohibitive for some smaller races but larger races, especially world athletics events often have measurer on hand, not maybe to do the course adjustment but course setup. So the turnaround points are placed correctly and verifying that the course is run exactly as measured. For major events, that's a big concern. For any event, that's a big concern.

Panos: 57:22

Okay, I think we've learned a great deal over the last hour or so. I hope it's clear for people listening in how the whole procedure works and how it compares to what you may be doing currently, and the benefits professional course measurement may have for you. You seem like someone who enjoys people reaching out and asking geeky questions about course timing and course design. How can people best reach you if they want to sort of follow up on some of this stuff?

Matt: 57:53

Precisioncoursedesign@gmail.com. Our website is precisioncoursedesign.com. And just one other thing that I would say that comes up a lot is, when you're doing this design process, it's really important to communicate with the local authorities in advance as well as maybe the course measurer because what comes up sometimes - this is, again, a function of digital mapping and things like that - you have it mapped out, you get your permits and things like that, and then you get out there and you need more real estate. So make sure you have those permits and stuff before anybody goes out there to measure. But yeah, if you kind of loop in with the course measurement stuff more in advance, that can kind of help with that - kind of figure out contingency plans, wiggle room, things like that. That's just my parting words or whatever.

Panos: 58:37

Well, actually, your parting words could also be that website you mentioned. Like, if people want to find a measurer in their area, I know you operate sort of around New Jersey and New York - those parts of the world. If someone wants to find a course measure in the US - and I know there's equivalent stuff in the UK-- in the US, what's the website to go to find a measurer?

Matt: 59:01

Yes. RRtc.net. You can search by state. You can get in contact with your state certifier. I think you can even look at a map and see the measurers around there. There's a lot of information on there. And that is a good place if you have questions about, like, well, what is a record-eligible course? What is a preverified course, World Athletics certified? Things like this. You can get more information there. You can get in contact with it. But just briefly, if you're expecting age group records on your course, first off, it needs to be a record-eligible course, meaning it can't drop more than one meter per kilometer net drop. And the separation between start and finish as the crow flies can't be more than 50%. It could still be certified like, for instance, Boston Marathon, California International Marathon, and Grandma's Marathon. These are not record-eligible courses but they're still certified courses and they are also still good for Olympic Trials qualifying and such. There's a bit of a different elevation requirement for that. New York City Marathon is an interesting one, even though it's point to point, it just has just slightly less separation. So it's just barely record-eligible although I don't think anybody's running a world record on that course anyway. I think Bill Rodgers described it as urban cross-country. Yeah, at a preverified course, basically, if someone sets a record or even an age group record on your course, there will likely be a remeasurement of it. There's something that's called preverification where you can do that in advance, then your course is not subject to remeasurement. You have two World Athletics accredited measures ride it at the same time and you're good to go, assuming you set everything up properly.

Panos: 1:00:45

Okay, that was super helpful. I think, on this note, we could wrap up. Thank you very, very much, Matt, for coming on today. Lots of very interesting, very geeky parts of information that we all had to take on. So thank you very, very much for your time.

Matt: 1:01:00

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Panos: 1:01:02

Absolutely. And thanks to our listeners, and we'll see you all on our next podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode on race course measurement and certification with Matt Slocum of Precision Course Design. You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website, RaceDirectorsHQ.com. You can also share your thoughts about some of the things discussed in today's episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub. Many thanks again to our awesome podcast sponsors RunSignup and Brooksee for sponsoring today's episode. And if you'd like to learn more about these two amazing companies, head to runsignup.com where you'll find just about everything you could possibly need to set up your race for success, including industry-leading registration tools, a professional free race website, free email marketing tools and tons more. And don't forget to check out Brooksee's new innovative Laurel timing technology, giving you real-time tracking of participants and a Virtual Command Center for your race, by visiting brooksee.com/headstart where you can also get a massive 50% off your first booking. Until our next episode, take care and keep putting on amazing races.