Some participants in Saturday's Myrtle Beach Marathon are complaining about the way their race times were first recorded.
Though complete times have now been posted online, the runners say the original information caused unnecessary confusion.
The company that timed the race says the runners simply misunderstood which results were posted.
When the gun goes off to start a marathon, it can take several minutes for a runner to get from the back of the pack to the starting line, so the runners' times are often posted in two forms: the so-called "gun time", with the clock starting when the gun goes off, and the "chip time", based on when the runner, with a timing chip attached, actually crosses the starting line.
Runner Jay Hamvas says the start times he saw posted didn't seem to make sense.
"The half-marathon, it looks like everybody started at once. Of course with over 3,000 people, that's pretty much impossible," Hamvas said.
Hamvas and several other runners posted comments about the timing on theMyrtle Beach Marathon's Facebook page.
Hamvas and several other runners posted comments about the timing on theMyrtle Beach Marathon's Facebook page.
One runner commented, "Something is extremely wrong with the results.." pointing out that every runner seemed to have the same start time. ne runner commented, "Something is extremely wrong with the results.." pointing out that every runner seemed to have the same start time.
Bruce Bokish, president of Precision Race, the company that timed the marathon, says race officials told him to only post the gun time, not the chip times. That's why originally, all the start times looked to be the same.
The gun time is what's considered official by marathon sanctioning bodies.
But Bokish says, after seeing the comments from runners, his company has added the chip times to the results posted online, in a searchable database.
"We'll post the results online in a format where people can look at them by chip or by gun time, whichever way they prefer," Bokish said.
In fairness, many runners who posted complaints about about the timing still said it was a great race, and Hamvas agrees.
"It was a fantastic race. The weather was perfect. The organizers did a fantastic job on it. Hats off to the volunteers."
Hamvas says he thinks most runners are relieved that the full results are now posted, but the problem is, the original gun times are still out there hanging around on the Internet, and they're still the only version that's been printed in the newspaper.
He hopes all the times can be printed, so people can clip them out and save them.
