I wrote a couple of responses to Milliseconds.com:
I was looking at my time on the swim and don't question the accuracy on my swim. I timed it manually with my watch and my swim time is correct. I am questioning the women's time though. There were several women who did it in 11 minutes? I highly doubt it.
But what really makes me question the accuracy is that my wife Cathi Gridley (Bib 1004) got a time 32 seconds faster than I did? Not in a million years. She told me she did backstroke the whole time. I was doing freestyle the whole time. There's no way she did it under 16:00 even. I was the first guy in my heat out of the water and passed my wife up the ramp out of the water. I just don't get it. Maybe the heat start time for the women's swim wasn't setup right.
I couldn't just let it rest there. I had to do more research. Which I sent to Milliseconds.com in another response:
I already sent in a note earlier, but in case you're thinking I'm full of hot air. I just looked up the results of the Elite category. And it shows that the Elite woman who came out of the water did it in 8:12. That's 49.3 seconds per 100 yards. That's a faster split time than the women's 100 M Free world record! (http://www.hickoksports.com/history/wswimrec.shtml#lwomen)
If 1000 M were an official timed event Jamie Lambert would have clearly broken the WORLD RECORD! The split times of the fastest women swimmers in the world don't even come under 1:00 per 100. So either Jamie Lambert is the fastest 1000 M swimmer in the world and should get credit for world record, or something is wrong with the the start time for the women. I hope this shows there might be human error on the women's swimming heat start.
Then I noticed that in the reporting of the swim times, they show the time for the average 100 yards. But that value is incorrect as well. I sent another response:
Sorry to knit pick - but I noticed that the results time shows the average 100 yard time for the swim. It showed that I did 1000 Meter swim in 15:39 with the average 100 yard time being 1:33.9
That would be correct if it were a 1000 yard swim, but this is meters. 1000 Meters = 1094 yards (http://benefitslink.com/cgi/fiberlinkmanager/measurement_converter.cgi) So the value displayed is wrong. My average 100 yard would have been 1:25.8 not 1:33.9. You either need to show that it is average per 100 Meter with the value that is currently showing, or have a converted 100 yard value.
Pretty close, but not exactly right. Sorry to be so fanatical.
Am I a nerd, or what? I'll post any responses I get back from them. But I don't really have a very good first impression.
6 comments:
I was thinking there was no way i swam my first triathlon in 17 minutes. My watch didn't start and I noticed it durring the swim, so decided to start it at the first buoy when i remebered to check my watch for the swim it was 21 minutes plus what time it took me to get to the first buoy.
Gordon,
Yes, you're a nerd, but your concern is 100% valid. For me, there's no point in even entering a race unless you can be sure it's timed accurately. I once entered a race where 15 minutes after it was supposed to start, the organizers finally announced that their timekeeper didn't show up and they would be timing the race with their cell phones. If my whole family didn't come out to run with me, I would have just asked for my money back and gone home.
So, if you're Milliseconds, and you make your living (or at least a side income) from timing races, you need to make sure nobody has cause to question the accuracy of your results, or you won't get hired for any more races. Hopefully, they realize this, and will get to the bottom of the screwup right away.
However, if they blow you off and don't answer you, they'll lose credibility. If they didn't address this, that would concern me to the point where if I was considering entering a race that was timed by Milliseconds, I'd reconsider it, or at least share my concerns with the race director beforehand.
You know, now that I think of it, Milliseconds timed the Park City Marathon. Their "official" time had me at 4:55:06, but the video I have of me crossing the finish line shows the big race clock saying 4:56:44 as I cross. I know they weren't giving net times for this race, so what gives?
Milliseconds responded: "In order to make the equalizer format work out on race day, the women were given a head start. So their times will look a short. I will be working on adjustments today that will give more accurate split times. - Mac"
So the women all got head starts on the swim. Okay - so what if a woman wants to know how fast she really did 1000 Meters in? If I were a woman I'd think this equalizer format is bunch of crap. Quit trying to make men and women "equal".
So I looked up the "equalizer" time for men/women 35-39 category and it was 7:18. So when Milliseconds reports that she swam 1000 M in 12:08 it was REALLY 19:26. That makes sense now.
Looking at the times in my division, 3 of the women don't even have swim times. I finally figured out that is because of the "equalizer" format. The women had a 22 minute head start so any woman that was faster than 22 minutes has a 0 for her swim time, and even her T1 or bike time is faster depending on how much time was left over. Anyway, I agree, it's kind of lame that women can't see what their real time is because they subtracted the head start.
I decided to just copy and paste my divisions time into excel, delete the women, then compare. I like that much better. Of course that could be because doing it that way, I came in 8th in my division instead of 15th! :)
OK - this is gonna be my last time discussing this issue, I promise. What they should have done in the reporting was under the Penalties column simply put a -00:07:20 (or whatever the appropriate "handicap" was). That way the ladies could still track their proper swim time, but still maintain their placement in the age group category. That would have been a much better way to do it.
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