Negative splits

One of the beauties of chip timing is getting your splits. At our DE Marathon we had timing mats at the 5 mile mark and the 13.1 mile mark and most runners went over the mats again at the 18 mile mark. Not only is this good for the runners to see how they keep pace but also another way we try and weed out those who either cheated or cut the course by mistake. At Sunday's marathon we had a few runners who ran negative splits. I don't mean a minute or two I mean 15 minutes. When I see that the red flag goes up. Here are two examples:

F35-39 1:47:12 8:11 1:35:23 7:17 3:22:35 7:44 3:22:39
M20-24 2:23:16 10:57 1:52:07 8:34 4:15:22 9:45 4:15:26

I contacted both of these runners and here are their answers:

I got your Email this morning.I ran the 1st half at a slow pace and then the 2nd half I really picked it up felling good.at around 20 or 22 miles I did stop to use the potty bathroom so I may have made a wrong turn but coming out of it but don't remember doing so.I thank you for such a lovely marathon.it was so well done and the course was lovely.I run a lot of marathon each year and this was such a nice one.thank you.

Yea, I was really tired. After I came out of the woods around mile 21, I took a left and went to the finish. Sorry if I wasn't suppose to do that. I wanted to see the crowd cheer so I still finished the final quarter mile.

Both were dq'ed. I don't get it....but at least they were honest when I asked them if they ran the complete course. I always give folks the benefit of the doubt. If asking why we did not post the 5 mile splits this was just for us to get a sense of pace for all runners heading out on route.