F.A.Q
Frequently Asked Questions
All running races are timed from an official start, often called the gun time. This time is used to calculate positions overall and within categories. It ensures that the first person across the line is the winner.
In large volume races it is often the case that it will take a certain amount of time to cross the start line and so a second time, often called the chip or net time, is calculated and this is your actual time from the start line to the finish line.
It is possible that someone’s chip time could be faster than the winner’s gun time – but that does not mean that they won the race! The UKA rules are that gun time is used for results ranking.
We have a dedicated results timing page here.
It is very common for a time recorded on a GPS device to be different to that recorded by chip timing – and you may well wonder why!
Chip times are all based on the difference between the time stamps recorded by our equipment which are UTC synchronised before every race delivering highly accurate results.
GPS devices measure their time by talking to satellites (which use the same ultra-accurate UTC time standards) but depend on having an unbroken link to that satellite to maintain an accurate time reference. If your path goes under the cover or buildings or trees (referred to as the ‘canyon effect’) then you can lose signal and the device may miss chunks of your progress. Some devices also only record the ‘moving time’ and/or to save battery update less frequently so pit stops, hold-ups at traffic lights and any other pauses will also not be counted. In the case of less frequent updates, turning a corner may result in the corner being cut off as shown by a line between the two points instead of a curve.
Races (competitive or otherwise) that are chip timed use the record from the chip timing system for their results – they are accurate, and they are consistent. Times off a GPS device can be helpful in finding times where a chip was lost, forgotten or, rarely, has failed but they are not regarded as being sufficiently accurate to determine results from.