The county and the clock.

[The Moose1]

Don't know if anyone else noticed, but they have a problem with timekeeping in Prince Edward County.

Here's what I know:

1.  If my watch says it's 9:55 and some seconds, and the race director says 5 minutes to the start, then, if I'm back before 10:00 I should be on time.  I should not be sprinting to make the start as my watch turns from 9:58 to 9:59, that's less than 4 minutes.  Kindly race director, if you mean 4 minutes to start, say 4 minutes to start, you screwed up my whole race.

2.  If a race director says 3 minutes to start, then says, "GO", well, that's way less than 3 minutes.  I'd generously estimate that start as being about 2 1/2 minutes off.

So, in the course of a few weeks, I got to sprint to the start of the Sandbanks 10k, then watch my friend sprint to the start of the County 1/2 marathon.

Could somebody please buy these people a watch....Preferably a digital one.


Peace,

Mike

[Sandy]

Good one.     I think there is a time change between here and the county!

[patti]

I know you posted this a while ago Mike but, I ran with a woman who was running her second 1/2 marathon.  We set our garmins as we crossed the starting mats and as we crossed the finish line.  Our time was 2:23, the clock was 2:23 ( I have a photo finish to prove it).  Our official time with sport stats was 2:27.  Now the woman I ran with was still thrilled she took 15 minutes off her 1st half, however there was still at least a 4 minute difference.  Not sure what happened.

patti

[The Moose1]

Oh, that was a leap minute.  Happens all the time over there.  So, take the minute off, and there's your 3 minute difference between actual time and County time.

Perfectly normal.

Mike

[cucina]

Although I am a little late in responding to thisjust for the record the marathon actually started 5 minutes late. The race director was not there for 8 am start so they announced that it would start at 8:05. To keep everything on track I naturally assumed that the 1/2 would also start 5 minutes late that being 10:05 but that was not the case it started at 10:00am.

It would make sense that the mats would emliminate any discrepency in the time but it doesn't appear to have done that if chip and clock are the same. Not sure the answer to this but it looks to me like the times are not correct for the 1/2 because of the late start to the full?????

Several other 1/2 marathoners expressed the same complaint to me as well.

[Kate]

That certainly explains the 4:04 on the clock at the finishing line and my chip time of 2:08 for the half.  I wondered how there could be that much of a discrepancy.