Keson Case Study: Road Race Director Counts on Keson Wheels to Guarantee Accuracy in Race Distances

Customer Profile:

Dover, New Hampshire’s Fergus Cullen is a political communications consultant by day, and a devoted road racing director in his spare time. A competitive runner for more than 25 years, Cullen helps runners, joggers and walkers throughout the Northeastern U.S. to test their fitness levels through the road races that he organizes. To ensure accuracy in the running distances, Cullen relies on Keson measuring wheels.

Business Situation:

A race director owes runners an accurate course, according to Fergus Cullen, competitive runner, frequent race director and political communications consultant in Dover, NH. Cullen is also the track coach for a local high school, and began organizing races as a way to raise funds to support the teams he coaches.

He abides by the USA Track and Field standards for measuring a road race, but had to borrow a measuring wheel when it came time to verify the distance of the first few races he organized. He enjoyed these experiences as a race director so much that he knew he needed to get a good measuring wheel to guarantee precision in his future race set-up work. Not just any wheel would do, either; Cullen wanted a Keson measuring wheel.

“There’s no excuse for an inaccurate course, yet it happens all the time,” said Cullen. “Imagine you’ve trained for months with the goal of setting a new personal best in a 5K. You think you came close, but your time is suspiciously fast, or slow even. You hear other runners grumbling, questioning the course’s accuracy. So did you get your new personal best, or did you come up short? You might never be sure.”

Cullen had also experienced firsthand the frustration of seeing inaccurate mile markers in races, which makes it hard for runners to pace themselves.

“It’s not good enough for a race director to drive a course in a car, or even use a GPS, which doesn’t account for the tangents runners take on turns,” Cullen said. “A Keson wheel takes all the guess work out. It’s fine to drive a course or use online mapping tools to get a rough sense of a course, but to determine the precise start and finish lines, you need a Keson wheel.”

Cullen also uses his Keson MP401 spoked measuring wheel to mark distances for his high school athletes to run for speed work when they can’t get to a track.

“Precision and consistency is important, and the Keson wheel takes care of that,” Cullen said.

Benefits:

Rugged measuring wheels proven to take a beating in harsh conditions

Reliable counters on measuring wheels deliver accurate data

Molded handle is easy to grasp

Great customer service and no hassle replacement parts