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A run too far: Green Bay Marathon course off by 800 feet

Posted by Tom Held of the Journal Sentinel on May 16, 2011

running, marathons

Organizers of the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon announced Monday that runners were misdirected near mile three and the mistake added 800 feet to the 26.2-mile course.

Times for all finishers, in the marathon and half-marathon, will be adjusted, according to a release from Race Director Sean Ryan.

The mistake added .15 miles to the marathon course. To calculate their correct times, marathons runners can multiply their chip time by .9943; half-marathon finishers should use the multiplier .9886.

Runners reported the problem, which was detected via GPS devices.

Ryan said: "We were alerted to the error after hearing multiple comments about inaccurate GPS readings at this particular point on the course. We know it’s common for runners who wear Garmin watches or other GPS devices to see differences in total distance due to the course being measured on the optimal, point-to-point line and runners straying from this line, but the consistency in these reports caused us to take another look.  We owe a thank you to those runners who weighed in on this matter."

The mis-marking added perhaps a minute to most runners. The strong wind gusts, up to 40 miles per hour, was a bigger factor in the slower times.