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Comment by gk1 | Hacker News Reader

Timing mats are usually placed at the same distance in every race: 5k, 10k, 13.1mi, etc. Adding extra mats probably means more cost.

That didn't prevent the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon organizers from placing an unannounced mat at a turnaround point 22 miles into the race. It helped them catch hundreds of cheaters.

And even if you can afford the extra mats, another challenge is where to place them. It's obvious with an out-and-back course, but there are many shortcut opportunities on every loop path, and you can't place a mat at every apex.

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Hundreds of cheaters?! Now I'm starting to understand why marathon sleuthing is the cottage industry that it is.

I think the number was unusually high for this particular race because the out-and-back is at the tail end of the race, is very long (4 miles out, 4 miles back), is only separated by traffic cones (making it easy to cut to the other side), and the weather was unusually brutal (very windy, near-freezing). It never occurred to me to cut to the other side, but I can understand why it did to many others.

"That didn't prevent the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon organizers from placing an unannounced mat at a turnaround point 22 miles into the race. It helped them catch hundreds of cheaters."

That sounds like a nice and easy way to weed out a lot of cheaters - every race has one or two randomly placed timing mats.

Many of the bigger city marathons are simply placing them at every 5k interval (20k will be 21.1k). I try and run 1-2 marathons a year and the results are posted minutes after I cross the line. It's always fun to see how many places I creep up as the days go by afterwards from people getting DQ'ed.

It's too easy to match pictures to a bib number and then simply look at the splits and wonder why someone ran a record breaking 10 minute 5k near the end after cruising along at a series of 25 minute 5k's. An 8 year old kid can investigate this stuff.

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