Why would they start to care about time submissions for virtual races now? They’ve been happy to take people’s money for virtual runs without any proof of event completion up until this point. Tracking completion prior to sending medal out would only complicate things further for them. I also still think they’d be in for a huge backlash if they converted any of the race weekends to virtual events, given the high costs for them.
I'd be very surprised if they allowed it for POT for other events.
Initially, I didn't think submitting a time would be required for a medal/items to be submitted to you. However, a quick glance at the Boston Marathon virtual seems to indicate that's what they're doing. Offering full refund or virtual option. If you choose virtual option, then you have to complete 26.2 miles continuously within 6 hours during what looks to be Sept 7-14th. So an incorporation of this system on the runDisney website could be a step towards something similar to what the BAA appears to be doing. It also appears based on the wording of the last section that the cost of the virtual event may not be the same as the original race cost in the case of Boston. But why would runDisney suddenly want a proof of completion for the event when runDisney in the past has had (and currently has) virtual events that don't require proof of completion for receipt of items? I'm not sure of that answer.
Best guess is the same as
@rteetz in that these events were previously not virtual and thus they're treating them differently. But that also begs the question (right or not) that in the case of the real runDIsney event people did not have to finish the race live in order to receive a medal, so why require proof virtually for the same medal?
https://www.baa.org/124th-boston-marathon-be-held-virtually
I could see them compiling the information with "standings" but not actually awarding anything based on those standings. A local company has been doing that for free for several weeks now (submission of virtual times at different distances to create a mock standings that doesn't actually mean anything).
Given past actions it seems like a quasi-bizzare step. But I'll reserve opinion until I see what they actually intend on doing with the submitted time information.
How recent do the races have to be to be a valid POT? Is there usually some period after registration that you can submit a time? I'm hoping to get an official race or two in sometime this Fall. Any chances that would be timely for SW next April (even though we'll be registering in August)?
The POT deadline is around 12 weeks prior to the race itself. So an April 2021 SW race is going to have a POT deadline around January 2021. It used to be the window was 2 years from race date (so an April 2021 race would have a window of April 2019 through January 2021). But more recently, because of COVID19, they increased the window backwards an additional 6 months. So an April 2021 race
could have a window of October 2018 through January 2021. The goal being that with cancelled races due to COVID19 thus far in Spring 2020 to allow more wiggle room in submittable times into a period when races were still occurring.
