5k - do you care how exact the distance is? (Read 906 times)

I'm in a small bind for a race we're sponsoring at the end of the month and I'm not sure what to do. Our company is the sole sponsor of small race that's taking place around the Blue Monster Course @ the Doral in Miami. We've advertised the course as being a 5k, though it's not going to be a "hard core" event and we're expecting less than 50 runners. The on-site coordinator is giving me two options: 1) A very cool course that goes around the Blue Monster Golf Course (which will be closed during the race). It's a loop, with no repeating. However, they're telling me that it would only be 2.8 miles or so. 2) An out and back course. Obviously, less scenic and a bit less fun to run. But it could be exactly 3.1 miles. My first move it so see if they can tweak the first option, but my question is - if I can't tweak course 1 - what should I do? I'm enough of a math geek that I'm leaning toward the boring but exact course but thought I'd put it out there for opinions.

But I think if you're advertising a 5-K distance, you should provide 5-K (and use the out and back if necessary). If you're going to have a 2.8 mile course, advertise it as such.

Drew is wise. I agree.

16,404 feet, 2.39 inches. No more, no less. In all seriousness, I'd recommend doing what you can to make it 5k in length. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be ticked if I showed up to something advertised as a 5k, and it was off by that much. I'd say do option 1, but stretch it out into 5 kilometers. If you overlapped the finish line so that it was 0.3 past the start on the loop, you could do it. Having run lots of 5k courses on and around golf courses for x-country, I can say it doesn't take much. If all of the curves were made a little bit wider, you could add some distance there. Think of it this way. Assuming the course was a perfectly circular loop, than the difference in radius between a 3.1 mile loop and a 2.8 mile loop is only (3.1-2.8)/2π =0.048 mi = 84 yards. Meaning you don't have to stretch things out very much to reach your desired distance of 5k.

It's not really that important to get the distance correct and 2.8 miles is close enough to 3.1 that no one will notice. Us runners don't really care about the tenths all that much anyway plus a scenic run is probably worth the extra .3 miles (you also could try and make sure the course is into the wind as the wind-adjusted distance might be +.3). In fact, sometimes when I run mile repeats I only run three laps and just round up. Speaking of which, does anyone know where I can sign-up for a 20 mile marathon? That would be cool.

hah! Best answer so far. Imagine you show up to run. You don't know the course is short. You run the race of your life, and if the course had been measured correctly you would have PRd by a huge margin. But it's not. It's short. You are pissed off. You find out the race organizer made it short on purpose. You yell at the race organizer. At the very least.

I care a lot. I would never, ever key for a race that is not run on a certified course. If you want to have your race on a 2.8 mile course, then call it a 2.8 mile race. Just make sure that it really is 2.8 miles. Garmin measurements and odometers don't cut it. It's a big, big deal.

Put a bunch of treadmills at the end and make them jump on and run .3 right at the finish line.

Good grief. Just advertise it as a 2.8 race. Everyone will PR because no one will have ever or ever again run that oddball distance. PRs for everyone! Wheeeeee!

I'd rather the 2.8 route if it's really that much more scenic, as long as it's clearly advertised as 2.8. I'm sure there are plenty of 5k's in Miami for the hardcore crowd who is only interested in their 5k PR.