Wow. Starting with this Sunday’s City Parks Foundation Run for the Parks (4M), New York Road Runners will implement staggered starts for the race….well, races actually.
This is how staggered starts work according to NYRR:
“The corrals will be released at regular intervals, with corral A leaving at the first starting horn, followed by an additional starting horn for each subsequent corral. Runners’ race net times will still be recorded from when they cross the start and finish mats. This change is based on runner feedback and will ensure a safer and more enjoyable race for everyone.”
When a groups of runners start at different times from each other, this would mean that each group would be running a separate race. That is what NYRR is doing here with staggered starts. Each corral start would be a separate race.
It will be interesting to see how staggered starts will affect the awards. Because runners in corral “A” will not be racing against runners from corral “B” since their respective corrals are starting at separate times. Therefor, the awards should not be awarded to runners across the corrals. If it were up to myself, only runners from corral “A” would be eligible for any awards.
Let’s see how this all works out Sunday. It will be interesting what arguments come out of this.
East River Runner 
April 9, 2016 at 11:57 pm |
I also was wondering how this would affect the races. Good thing that the Nyrr is starting this new system in a smaller race.
April 20, 2016 at 11:52 pm |
NYRR will be doing this with all races. It ruins the club points races.