By Thomas Varick, Sports Writer for the Alternative-Times

Due to harsh winds not often experienced in a New England coastal city during the month of March, the New Bedford Half Marathon has been cleared by the USATF (the governing body of track & field and all things running in America) to adjust finishers’ times to account for the outrageous conditions.  Using a complex, propriety algorithm, a conversion percentage of roughly 93.85% was determined to be appropriate. This marks the first move of its kind as the sport gravitates towards a fairer way of reporting performances more in-line with the competitor’s true fitness.

“It’s not fair to have a headwind effect my time when I was on pace for a PR through mile 9”, a victim of the winds reported to the Alternative-Times shortly after finishing the harsh event.  “If you didn’t count miles 10 through 13 I would have shattered my half marathon best, so I think something needs to be done about this”.

The corrected results come as a relief to many as most of New England appeared to be in the best shape of their life for this Grand Prix event and now the results will accurately reflect that.  Officials reported to AT that the conversion factor was carefully calculated after scraping countless Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and various online running log posts in the 72 hours following the event.  

“We believe the conversion factor is rock solid based on the feelings of some of the most vocal members of the running community”, reported a senior director with Mathematics 4 Us, the third party data collections and manipulation service contracted to recalculate the inaccurate first round results.  “We don’t often tie numerical support to emotions, but after successfully landing on a rock-solid number with this algorithm we believe our methods can be duplicated in other adjustment scenarios that once strictly involved uniform statistics”.

Online race results will contain both the original reported mistake alongside the corrected conversion for the next 3 months before the original figures are scraped from the internet to avoid any future confusion and/or embarrassment for competitors.  It is suggested that all participants from the event wait until the false internet information is fully cleansed after the three month window before announcing personal best updates on social media platforms to avoid any potential falsification claims.

Below is a written out example of how to perform the conversion.  Please note, all conversions are based on CHIP TIME per USATF-NE ruling.  For a list of fully converted results, please contact [email protected].

Incorrectly reported chip time: 1:20:00
Conversion percentage: 0.938461538461538
Corrected Time: 1:15:05

Before boasting about your new PR, be sure to check the calendar. Welcome to April. This contributor wished to remain anonymous but the spirit of it was quite appropriate for the day.