Y’all mind helping me out with a dumb question - being club runD has made me dumb with POTs and the formulas/calculations I see posted (I really tried to follow the spreadsheet!). My DW (not club runD) had a 2:29:04 POT and is in F for the Half/Full. Is F just the way it is with that kind of POT? Appreciate any input from those that are good with these things! Thank you.
So runDisney uses something close to the below tables:
In Marathon Weekend, if you register for the marathon, Goofy, or Dopey, then you look at the top table.
In Marathon Weekend, if you register for the HM, then you look at the bottom table. The bottom table is also used for other weekends (not SS) and challenges (not MW).
So if DW registered for the HM and M separately at MW, then her 2:29:04 POT would give her Corral C for the HM and Corral D for the M. This is because her 2:29 is outside the cutoff for POT for a M by 7 min (2:22 HM POT).
I'm guessing she registered for either Goofy/Dopey, which means her 2:29:04 was above the cutoff of 2:22 and thus should not be considered for POT. The 2:29:24 HM POT converts to a 5:15:37 using the top table. So it's my opinion she should have been appropriately slotted into Corral D. Although I have seen record of at least one person who believes they put 5:00-5:30 as their estimate and were slotted into Corral E at MW 2025. But as
@fatmanatee said, we have seen cases where runners are appropriately slotted despite a POT being outside the window (like DW being placed in Corral D based on 2:29 HM POT), and sometimes have seen cases where runners are placed in the last corral (like DW being placed in Corral G b/c the POT was outside the range). I've had several conversations with runDisney over the years, and they always say they're considered putting a calculator that shows the POT cutoffs for the other distances on their website (but not the within POT corral cutoffs), but they never seem to do it. Which is why I try and keep an updated reference table on the DIS to help us make decisions using their methodology.
What can make it really hard to follow is it is clear that runDisney is using separate calculations for the two different tables. In the top table, all calculations are T2 = T1 X (D2/D1)^1.079. But that's not true for the HM table. That one has three separate calculations based on the distance you choose to submit as a POT. With an exponent value of 1.06, 1.03, or 1.11. The 10 miler is the best example to give because it's not either distance (HM or M) and is submittable into both tables. If someone were to submit a 1:30:00 10 miler, then the top table converts that to a 2:00:32 HM equivalent, but the bottom table would convert that to a 1:58:57 equivalent. For a M, Goofy, Dopey that runner would be in Corral B, but for a HM, that runner would be in Corral A.
A 4:59:59 M is the slowest submittable POT for the M, Goofy, Dopey. But you could submit a 5:24 M and still be within POT cutoffs for a HM (or HM challenge).
