In a statement, the Association of UK Course Measurers have recently announced that the Manchester Marathon course for 2013, 2014 and 2015 was nearly 400m short.
Following complaints about the 2015 race, the course was rechecked and it was found that that it was 380 metres short. Progressive errors detected in the mile markers as the course got longer suggest that there was a problem with the calibration of the wheel used in the initial measurement.
The distance for the 2016 edition will be the correct distance.
You can see the statement HERE
So what does it mean? It means that if you ran a PB in Manchester then it's doesn't count. If the course had been correct and you had managed to cover the extra 380m at the same average pace then it would have resulted in the following times...
3:00:00 is actually 3:01:38
3:30:00 is actually 3:31:54
4:00:00 is actually 4:02:11
What they don't say is that this problem should have been picked up long ago. There are so many people out there running with GPS watches that this problem would have been flagged after the 2013 race. It should have been checked back then. Instead, they used the wrong course for another two years.
On the issue being raised by runners compared to GPS. In my experience people don't want to hear about GPS measurements no matter how many bring it up its always the same story back "GPS aren't accurate measurements". It comes up here every now and again and it always ends in that line. Granted there is a point to that but it just shows these calls were ignored by Manchester without even thinking of rechecking.
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