Not that it matters, but I put in a PoT that gave me a 6:30 equivalent marathon for Dopey this year.
I was corralled in E for the 5/10 and L for the half/full. I was definitely where I belonged for the half/full, but it I felt it I should've been higher for the 5/10, especially since just before Dopey I ran my PR 10K of 1:09. Anyway, doesn't matter now! But just wanted to mention that ... with a 6:30 marathon equivalent, I sure would've loved to have been in C for the 5/10!!
Yea, my 5/10K guesses were based on a hybrid of matching bibs to Dopeys from 2015 (the whole Dis-board meet up project from the old thread) and then using 2016 corral assignment times. So my guess is my predictions would have been more accurate for the 2015 corral system than the 2016. That's a shame you were placed in E. If I remember correctly I placed my wife in corral C with a 10K estimate of 11:00 min/mile. Which means that's where you should have been (like corral system 2015). I wonder what made them change the corral system up.
I guess the way I would do the Dopey corralling system is as follows (this is assuming the 5K/10K and Half/Full bibs have to remain connected):
-Require POT (no change)
-At registration, ask estimated pace for 10K and Full. Make it clear that this estimate does play a role in corral decisions.
-Allow POT change until October (no change)
-Allow estimated pace adjustment for 10K and Full until October (NEW).
-Send out 3 emails warning of the upcoming POT deadline - 1 month, 2 weeks and 3 days in advance of POT deadline. Also place on twitter and Facebook because email system is unreliable. (I think this is new.)
-In a two step system, your POT qualifies you for the furtherest ahead corral possible. However, if your estimated pace is slower it pushes you further back into the corral matching that pace.
-The higher up corral assignment the more likely you are to random screening for valid POT.
-If invalid POT, then contact athlete via email to allow them to send in a new POT. If failed twice, last corral. (This probably require more personnel than they want to allocate to it though).
Thoughts?
For this past Dopey, I submitted a PoT of just under 2 hrs - FWIW the PoT run was at DL of all places.
When I was corralled for the Dopey Half, I was placed in the corral after the 2 hr pace team. I chalked it up to runDisney using the McMillan calc to place me for the Marathon (the Dopey corrals for both the half and the full are the same letter) but I was a little disappointed because I really wanted to try to improve my Half time...and then take the marathon at a more casual pace.
Maybe I'm an anomaly but if my guess is right (about the McMillan-esque calculating), expect to be more or less properly placed for the full but placed in a 'slower' corral for the Half.
I wonder if this happens either because-
1) They assume Goofy/Dopey runners will run the half slower than POT suggests. The conventional idea. OR,
2) Because there isn't a good way to get the corrals to line up because the half/full bib remains the same for challenge runners. You have to intermix non-challenge runners and challenge runners together for the half and full. Possibly the population of runners completing the half and full as non-challenge runners aren't near equivalent and thus having matching bib placements for Goofy/Dopey participants forces them into slower half corrals.
What I gather from this image is that half and full non-challenge athletes aren't the same population. Thus, the runners doing the full can run faster half times then their bib matched half athlete could. This causes a problem when the same number of non-challenge participants have to be in the half/full corrals to keep the corral numbers the same between the half and full (because the Goofy/Dopey are the same number between the corrals). In the end having the right number of people in each corral (whether challenge or non-challenge runners) matters the most to Disney (my guess). Thus, it forces the Goofy/Dopey to be back a corral possibly not because they may run slower but because there aren't equivalent populations of non-challenge runners. However, in the end I would guess this works out because most challenge participants will probably run a slower half than their POT would suggest. I was in C this past year with a POT full of 3:38 (outperformed my half PR). This means I could run a 1:43 half. I was with the half participants with a 1:48-1:57 estimate. I ended up running a 1:43 half at Disney. So right on my POT estimate. However, I did run a half in December in 1:38 so I was capable of a little more.
Obviously the best case scenario is to have 3 or 4 bibs - one for each of the races (or 5/10K, Half, and Full). But that would cost extra in bib allocation and then potentially more headaches with people wearing the wrong bibs to each of the races (more bibs = more mistakes). However, using my system laid out above it would allow people the opportunity to choose their pace up until October at least for more appropriate 5K/10K placement, and maybe help some with the Half/Full placement.
Thoughts?
In the meantime I am going to be armed with printouts/screen shots in case something doesn't look right.
