Watch time or "official race time" with no chip

7 watchers

PerfectOrganism May 2014 11:13am, 16 May 2014 245 posts	0 PerfectOrganism Thanks for all the comments. I can see both points of view. I certainly record the chip time if the race has a chip; that's a no brainier. I certainly see the points about the time it takes to run the distance, not the time it takes to run the distance PLUS that wee bit to cross the start. In a way I think that because neither time is entirely accurate, it is more likely that the watch time is and I am tempted to record this especially when it comes down to that time being a PB or not. What I do at the moment is record the "official" time and then put my watch time in the comments section of my training log. I am becoming tempted to swap this around so that my watch time becomes my official (er) time and my official time becomes the footnote, maybe with a wee disclaimer that the race did not have a chip.
paul the builder May 2014 11:58am, 16 May 2014 4,564 posts	0 paul the builder I'd go with officially recorded time, unless there's an obvious cock-up in the results. (Happened once to me, 30 seconds out on a 10k). Problem with folk deciding their own times for races from their own watches is that different people will have different standards about when to start/stop them. And the next step to deciding your own rules is taking the time off your GPS watch for when it reached 10km, or 13.1m, or whatever, because you're declaring the course 'long'. Which is 10 flavours of wrong.
PerfectOrganism May 2014 12:03pm, 16 May 2014 247 posts	0 PerfectOrganism Yep agreed, that is a potential problem.
Spleen May 2014 3:02pm, 16 May 2014 713 posts	0 Spleen "Different people will have different standards about when to start/stop them"? Really? I start mine when I cross the line and stop it when I cross the other one. What does everyone else do?
faithfulred May 2014 3:09pm, 16 May 2014 408 posts	0 faithfulred I think there's no problem with going with watch time if there's a large field and there's no chip. After all, you will know if you've been honest with yourself, and that's all that matters. You will care about your time but in the vast majority of cases no one else will, so what's the harm in it!
Autumnleaves May 2014 3:47pm, 16 May 2014 3,866 posts	0 Autumnleaves Well I usually start mine a few metres before the start - then if there is a difference in the official time it's usually in my favour! I try and turn it off on the finish line, but have been known to forget!
colettedeann May 2014 3:53pm, 16 May 2014 9,085 posts	0 colettedeann was a bit of a cock up on sunday when i did colchester 10k - but in my favour gave my race number to someone else with same surname and i was left with the number of a 21 yr old lad - and my name became nathan for the race so officially my 10k time is 47 mins - and his is 1h02something - was still online last time i looked - i did tell them that the lad may not be a happy chappy and they said they would try to sort it -
Spleen May 2014 4:29pm, 16 May 2014 714 posts	0 Spleen I actually had an interesting dilemma with this issue Sunday before last. At the Hamburg Marathon I staggered over the line, hit the stop button, looked at my watch and saw that it read 3:40:00 exactly (a PB). I literally laughed at loud in the middle of the finishing tunnel - people must have thought I'd snapped. When I got back to the hostel a clubmate congratulated me on my time of 3:40... and one second, which he'd read on the Internet. My first reaction was "bugger that, my watch said 3:40" - I distrust chips because so many of them have failed to work in my experience. But after a while I changed my mind and decided that, this time only, I'd go with the chip time. And that I'd try to do another marathon and cross the line far enough beneath 3:40 to make it indisputable. Partly so no-one can say I haven't done sub 3:40, and partly so I can have the fist-pumping moment of breaking 3:40 all over again. Despite my facetious response to Mick, I do realise that there can be a second or two's difference between crossing the line and starting your watch. I think this normally works against you, because when you're stumbling over the finish line it takes a couple of seconds to find the right button, but apparently not always.
paul the builder May 2014 5:48pm, 16 May 2014 4,569 posts	0 paul the builder Some start and finish lines are not that clearly marked, is what I was mainly thinking of. And you could easily enough run alongside somebody and come up with times 5 seconds different. Which is not a lot - unless it straddles a PB, or a major numerical boundary. Who's Mick?
Keefy Beefy May 2014 6:25pm, 16 May 2014 8,976 posts	0 Keefy Beefy When I raced I did watch time for non-chipped races. Never occured to me that I shouldn't. Doesn't change the official results. Only you know you recorded your true time for the distance.