Good day, @Challengers!
A few people commented after the group run that their GPS watches recorded the run at 3.3 miles instead of 3.1, and in fact, my Garmin did as well. I know I wheeled the course correctly, so I was worried that perhaps the wheel wasn’t calibrated. This morning, the problem hit me like a bug in the face: my directions were wrong!
The problem is that the Lakefront Loops course is basically two loops plus an out-and-back. Originally, I had planned on the start/finish sign being at the crossing to the dog park, where the two loops intersect. But that wasn’t feasible, so I picked a different spot halfway down the Cass Park Rink parking lot. Still no problem.
The mistake came when I chose to go around both loops counter-clockwise for simplicity’s sake. Because of the new starting location, that meant there was an additional .2 miles right by the start/finish that you ran twice. Oops!
I ran the course again today to confirm my suspicion, and indeed, if you go around the loop that encircles the Cass Park playing fields clockwise, hit the out-and-back, and then continue clockwise around the loop past the rink and into the finish, it’s exactly 3.1 miles.
I have now updated the RunGo directions, text directions, and MapMyRun route on the Lakefront Loops 5K page, so the next time you run it, recheck the directions.
And if the Most Miles competition comes down to less than a mile difference, I’ll check the activity logs to see if anyone deserves another few tenths from running the longer route before this fix went into play. 