How short was the Marathon Project course

All strava uploads I have seen show distances well above 26.2. I know that GOS can struggle on a course like this but hard to believe it was short

tartarm wrote:

No way I’m buying those times. Not one bit.

A lot of no names running 10 min prs. Come on. Very few prep races.

People forget how rare it is for Americans to have a London or Berlin style chance at a fast race. Boston and New York are the biggest US draws. Both are slow, challenging courses and don't use pacers. Honestly, how Fauble and/or Ward didn't run far under 2:09 is beyond me. 2:09 at Boston is worth at least 2:07 on a course like that.

Chicago is much flatter, but still no pacers and the conditions are never as good as this.

The race conditions and course were PERFECT. Absolutely perfect. These guys could race the rest of their lives and not have conditions like that again.

There are idiots on here who claim tracks are short by their “satellite Google maps” calculations. Idiots, please calculate the EXACT distance of this course and post methodology.

I actually find Google Earth (not Google Maps) relatively accurate for measuring if you zoom in and carefully follow the tangents. Plus it becomes more accurate with a course like the one in Chandler that has no visual obstructions (trees, buildings, etc) and flat.

I spent many days measuring the Marathon Project Course on Google Earth before going there for the actual bike measurement and all of my readings came up within a few meters.

The big difference these days is that race directors are specifically finding ways to create the fastest possible courses, whereas in the past courses were made and then some ended up being fast. London, Berlin, and Chicago happened to be the fastest marathons because those places were flat. Eventually Berlin tweaked the course to make it even faster and encourage world records.

Then we see places like Valencia, the Breaking 2 project, and that Running Lane place where the courses are specifically designed to produce fast times. Literally some people were like lets create the fastest course possible and BOOM you have some superfast courses.

If you want to see what short means go to Valencia or Monaco

there is always one wrote:

terminology wrote:

You mean accurate, not precise

My goodness, gtfo.

There's always one who gets annoyed when their mistakes get pointed out, yes.

D.Katz wrote:

I actually find Google Earth (not Google Maps) relatively accurate for measuring if you zoom in and carefully follow the tangents. Plus it becomes more accurate with a course like the one in Chandler that has no visual obstructions (trees, buildings, etc) and flat.

I spent many days measuring the Marathon Project Course on Google Earth before going there for the actual bike measurement and all of my readings came up within a few meters.

Great job and please ignore the ignorant posters who have nothing better to do. Well done Mr. Katz!

I think that Scott Fauble, CJ Albertson and Cam Levins would disagree with the OP.

you know right wrote:

Very suspicious if you look at it from a statistical stand point. even thoiugh this was little more than a Bowerman-ish time trial.

I think it is clear that none of these guys/gals will ever run within 2:00+ of those times ever again in a race.

Usually when you say "from a statistical standpoint" that means you've actually, you know, done some statistics. Where's your analysis?

FWIW, road courses can definitely be short even when measured accurately, and have been called out here before (misplaced turn cones, wrong line used, etc). But that seems much less likely at the Marathon Project than at a typical road race.

Your are correct, sometimes it happens that there are misplaced cones or barricades. It even happened at the Rio Olympics Marathon (but fortunately I fixed it before the runners reached that point. But I can assure you that the Marathon Project course was set up properly. I checked every cone and barricade, then rode several laps behind the leaders to see exactly where they were running in relation to the course.

This course was more like running on a large track with long sweeping bends.

The video of the race is a great lesson on how to run the measured line. I watched as Sarah ran the exact measured line for nearly the entire race (except for the short sections to deviate for the refreshments).

you know right wrote:

Very suspicious if you look at it from a statistical stand point. even thoiugh this was little more than a Bowerman-ish time trial.

I think it is clear that none of these guys/gals will ever run within 2:00+ of those times ever again in a race.

I'm looking at the guys results, about 40 guys finished. About 25+% of them this was either their first marathon (Rory Linkletter, Ben Preisner, Mick Lacofano, Reid Buchanon, a couple others), or their second marathon after their only previous one was in Atlanta (Colin Bennie, Kevin Lewis, Joel Reichow, a couple others) on the hardest course most of these guys will run which would pretty much guarantee a PR if they run on a fast course like Marathon Project. Another 25+% did NOT PR and have run more than a couple marathons (guys like Jared Ward, Matt McDonald, Scott Fauble, Cam Levins, Wilkerson Given, Charlie Lawrence, Daniel Docherty, a couple others that I didn't dive into).

The remaining people who ran a PR, and have run more than a couple marathons, they mostly all have other credentials in the 10k or half marathon that indicated they should probably have a faster PR than they previously had.