Was the Rock 'n' Roll Denver Marathon Course Long?

ESCO

Published on 10-21-2010 04:00 AM Number of Views: 7104

Speculation has been running rampant that the Rock 'n' Roll Denver Marathon course was long, from people reporting mileage of 26.7 on their Garmin, to investigative runners checking out the USATF map and their Garmin uploads.

The error appears to have occured on 8th Avenue. If you look at the Garmin map above the runners turned around at Tejon Street. If you look at the USATF map you'll noticed that runners turn around before Tejon Street, at the east side of the building. This was around mile 24 on the course.

Not exactly sure how much this lengthened the course, but it appears that the course was long. Maybe a 1/4 of a mile, just a guess.

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26 Comments

jessemalkin - 10-23-2010, 05:35 AM
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That settles it: the course was long.

The Competitor Group certainly has ample resources at its disposal. The race organizers should have been more careful.

It seems to me that they should acknowledge the error, apologize for it, and take steps to ensure this won't happen again in the future.

RaceMeasure - 10-23-2010, 03:01 PM
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The turnaround was placed 382' west of the correct location, for a total of 764' of extra distance. .144 mile, if you care to extrapolate your time. I measured it using the Jones Counter, which is what is used to measure all USATF-certified courses.

Just to be clear, I had nothing to do with setting out the course on race day. I just set out the clocks.

dave - 10-23-2010, 08:11 PM
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Congrats to all the new ultramarathoners out there

jessemalkin - 10-24-2010, 05:20 AM
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Thank you, RaceMeasure, for taking the time to measure the extra distance. That's helpful.

Unregistered - 10-25-2010, 07:13 AM
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I knew it was wrong just based on my time. I was running very consistent 7:30's;
7:30, 7:31, 7:30, 8:56, 7:36, 7:28
That 8:56 stood out like a sore thumb. It wouldn't have made a significant difference to me, but anyone who missed qualifying for Boston or New York because of this could be rightfully upset.

Unregistered - 10-26-2010, 08:23 AM
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A quick look at the results from this race and it appears that 19 runners between the age of 18 and 54 (men's and women's) missed their BQ due to this error. The sad thing is that Boston sold out the day after this race. In my opinion, if Competitor Group wanted to do the right thing they should pay for charity entries for these people into Boston if they should choose to run it. Some people devote months and months of training to BQ. If they miss the qualification it shouldn't be due to carelessness on the part of the race organizers. That is really sad.