Every Marathon held everywhere in the world should be forced to follow the same rules or they lose their validation. The IAAF may never do anything unless there is a valid complaint.

This article appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer a few years ago:

Abeba Tola traveled more than 7,300 miles (11 750 km) from Ethiopia to take part in the women’s 10-kilometre portion of the 25th CVS/pharmacy Cleveland Marathon. But it was the fourth mile yesterday that cost her.

Tola, 25, was running with Jackline Toroni of Kenya at that point, and then Toroni began to pull away. Tola, thinking she was at the 4-kilometer mark instead of the 4-mile mark, did not go with her.

I wonder if these mistakes are common when marathon runners from metric countries encounter a metric unfriendly atmosphere in the US or the UK.

Maybe it isn’t too late to contact the IAAF and see what can be done to make sure all marathons that will be held this year will comply.

I often do fun run’s that the organisers tell us are 5 or 10 k in length, but out of a severe bad habit I persist in calling them 3 & 6 mile runs… I appreciate that I am in no way a professional runner, I run for charity & to stay in shape for martial arts (which uses the metric system - our shiai-jo is 8m x 8m)… I train by running 3 - 6 miles (depending on the run coming up) around our local park with orienteering markers (set approx 1/2 mile apart although this varies from course to course) and so I find that this helps me…

Sadly, while indeed metric measures are the norm for just about every other sporting endeavour, marathons are never referred to in km in this country. I recall the (otherwise fairly metric) Blue Peter happily reciting the “26 miles 385 yards” verbiage, like a mantra, every year throughout my childhood, as if there were some magical quality to those numbers.

We have plenty of evidence that most people don’t cope well with trying to handle two systems, and this is surely just an example of that. With 10 km runs being commonplace, runners are perfectly at home with the metric system, but because marathons are never referred to in metric, it’s not surprising that hardly anybody can make the connection nor realise quite the difference between the two.

This is probably why every year, many amateur runners, well-used to the 10-k, bravely try to attempt a marathon without fully realising the scale involved, and often struggle to complete it. Good on them for making the attempt, but I’m sure that if the marathon were more commonly referred to as a 42 km race, a great many more people would be much more immediately aware of the sheer scale involved, and instead decide to tackle some more of the intermediate events first before attempting the big one!

We’re regularly told over and over by retailers and the media that imperial measures are used because it’s what we’re used to using on the roads… but it does nothing more than insult our intelligence!

“For more than 30 years, distance marker posts have been provided at 100 metre intervals along each hard shoulder of motorways. These are used for maintenance purposes (e.g. to enable maintenance contractors to identify exactly where repair works are needed). Also, they show the direction to the nearest motorway emergency phone.

When a driver uses one of the motorway emergency telephones, the RCC operator knows the precise location of the caller. However, with the increased use of mobile telephones by drivers in an emergency, police may not be able to quickly locate the scene of an incident, as drivers sometimes are not sure of their location. Also, on many all purpose roads, there are no emergency telephones. Therefore, at a number of trial sites, both on motorways and on all purpose roads, driver location signs have been erected by the Highways Agency at regular intervals (e.g. every 500 metres in each direction). These traffic signs use the same motorway referencing system as the distance marker posts, to enable the driver to identify, and the emergency services to rapidly locate, the scene of an incident without any confusion. The signs show the route number, the carriageway identifier and the kilometerage.

The EU Directive on units of measurement provide for the continuation in use in the UK of imperial units for road traffic signs, speeds and distance measurement, until a date to be fixed by the UK Government. The EU do not specify a deadline for fixing a date and the Government has no plans to change the imperial units still in use.

The design of the driver location sign was agreed with the Department for Transport in 2003.”

Here is the link (see question 14):

http://www.highways.gov.uk/business/16041.aspx

The small white posts at the side of the road are placed every 100 metres, and the newer driver location signs, which are currently being installed, are placed at 500 metre intervals. Both show distances in kilometres from the start of the road.

http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/17088.aspx

As with most measurement issues, I would suspect that people simply follow what they read in the papers rather than thinking about it for themselves.

“The British press was undecided as to whether she ran 21 miles or 22 miles – none mentioned the huge 36 km marker which was clearly visible to every television viewer in the world.”

I have a strong hunch the influence of Imperial road signs is showing its continuing effect here.

One can only hope that a way can be found to put in place a program to replace existing signs with metric ones (along with Imperial decals until M-Day arrives) so that the UK can present SI only on the roads and motorways in time for the London Olympics.