Amended Marathon Routes

The full and half marathons were originally supposed to go all the way to the Tanjung Aru beach roundabout before turning back along the same road. However, the police, in spite of agreeing to those routes at first, withdrew their consent. The organisers of the Borneo International Marathon has since arranged for the official from the Malaysian Athletic Association to remeasure the respective routes.

Just this afternoon, I received the amended routes from Shan Sandhu, the Event Coordinator of the Borneo International Marathon. The routes are basically similar with the original ones, but instead of going all the way to Tanjung Aru, runners will make a turn at the coastal highway—Jalan Mat Salleh intersection and then back the same way towards the direction of KK City Centre. Instead of going all the way to Tanjung Aru, runners will now turn into the Sutera Harbour Resort internal road; in fact similar to the recent 7k sunset route.

Check out these amended maps for the respective routes (click on the maps):

Half Marathon (21 km) Route

Full Marathon (42 km) Route

By the way, during the last marathon clinic, I was given to understand that the distances are very, very accurate. The margin of error is only about 1%, and the measurements are all certified by only qualified people. I will try to get someone from the BIM to comment from the technical point of view in connection with the methods of measurements, the accuracy of the distances etc.

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Update (28 August 2008):

I have since received a techical description on how the marathon routes have been measured. The following is from comment from Mr Murugesu of the MAAU and Mr Chris Nielsen of the Borneo International Marathon:

The routes of the marathon and half marathon have been measured by Malaysian Athletics Federation staff according to international guidelines. This is done using a special distance measurement instrument attached to a bicycle. These are calibrated to a fixed 1 km distance, which is measured using a steel tape in the evening (to minimise errors from high temperatures). Two bicycles are used to ensure that both instruments are working accurately.

Then the course is measured by riding the bikes. This is the best way to measure the exact route, because the bikes can account for the slightly shorter distances that runners will take as they run around bends and curves. This is all done at night when temperatures are relatively constant (and traffic is not so busy), and a re-calibration to the fixed 1 km distance is done at the end to make sure all is working properly.

So at the end of the day, the course distance is accurate to international standards. The overall error in over the marathon distance is expected to be less than 10 m, and measurement is done to ensure that this error is longer than 42.195 km, not shorter.