2:22 was debatable, but 2:47 is way too soft

so basically women are lazy

I'm not sure how general that effect is. My sense in the DC area was that the 2:22 for men and 2:47 for women functioned quite similarly. The best runners in town were chasing the standard, and in each case a handful made it and a lot just missed [so far, in the case of women].

The rock and roll marathon in Arizona brought in 39 women to take a shot at 2:47 and 7 made it.

http://www.rnraz.com/press/elite_postrace_08.html

I'm not privy to the details of everybody's training, but I would think that most of the 39 [who I believe passed some sort of initial screening - it wasn't just an open signup for anyone to say they were taking a shot at the trials] were making a great effort.

Lowering the cutoffs might or might not be a good idea, but I wouldn't lower it based on a premise that there's nobody really dedicated who's currently falling a bit short on the women's side.

I don't think lazy is the right word. I believe his point is that the women's marathon standards are much softer than the mens standards.

By saying that men had to train their asses off and run an amazing race to qualify, while (in his opinion) women who were also training their asses off didn't have to have to run out of their minds to qualify, that doesn't say women are lazy. It means the standards are not equal in difficulty to achieve.

This has been argued a lot.

Men WR - 2:04

Women WR - 2:15

That's approximately 11 minutes different.

The trial's separation was between 2:22 and 2:47, which is 25 minutes. That is really messed up, but that really shows that depth and competition in women's running is much less.

The women's qualifying time is definitely soft. It's a fact, there are fewer sub-elite women than men. It's also a fact that 2:47, as a percentage of the world record, is a much softer qualifying standard than 2:22 (now 2:19)

Here is the proof - look at some race results. The age-graded performance, which is based upon the world record for someone in your age group, is usually posted on the results page. A 2:22 is a significantly higher percentage of the men's world record compared to a 2:47 against the women's world record. Therefore, logically, it is HARDER for a man to hit a 2:22 (now 2:19) and qualify than it is for a woman to hit 2:47.

They changed the men's trial standard, I would bet a lot of money the women's standard will change as well after this year's trials.

Anyone else agree? And how many women have qualified so far?

Since the USATF thought the men's race was too crowded with abut 140 runners qualifying, I'd suspect they'd feel the same way with the women, since they have 166 qualified already.

You'll probably hear an announcement about the tightening of the standard a few months after Boston this year, much like they did with the men.

I am a marathoner in the trials and I agree that 2:47 is much easier than 2:22. But if you look at the depth of women marathoners in the US it is not even close to the men. You could make the standard harder I am fine with that and have pushed for it with USATF but if it is too hard you will end up with about 30 women in the trials.

I have to disagree with the statement that we are lazy. I think the problem is that most "elite" women wait too long to run the marathon. They run track 5k and 10k (which they should) but focus on the marathon at the end of their career.

I think it is going to change in the next 4-8 years. There are some younger runners moving up and the base of talent is growing. We are just a little behind the development of the men.

It seems the same number of males and females qualified.

I would say that the 2:20 guys were just happy to be there and didn't feel that they could take out the 2:10-2:13 guys.

That being said I'm sure the standard will be more difficult next trials especially since the men's was cut.

Fortunately, this isn't a college event. If it was, the women could just pull the Title IX card and save their standard, even if it is too lax.

140 men vs. 166 women isn't the same number of qualifiers. The same amount were allowed to race, but more women qualified. If womens marathoning isn't as deep as mens marathoning, but nearly 20% more women qualify, then the standards aren't equivalent.

I agree with those that think the standard is soft for women. But I don't think it should change either. Changing the standard isn't going to motivate those trying to make the Olympic team (will Deena be affect by changing the Trials standard?). Why change it?

Remember, they only want 50 or so qualifiers... so the women standard need to be dropped big time!

When I was in college and working hard to try to reach the nearly unattainable goal (for me) of qualifying for nationals in the 1500, I remember thinking that the men's qualifying standard was awfully tough.

During that time you know what I thought of the women's qualifying standard for the 1500? I didn't. I didn't even know what it was. Because I'm not a GIRL!!

I've wondered about the womens standard too. An elite, yet hardly impressive by world standards, time for men is 2:10-2:12. Which means the mens qualifying times are about 10-12 minutes slower, I think it is reasonable to think that some people who run 2:20-2:22 could one day improve to the "elite" level.

For women an elite, yet not very competitive time would most likely be around 2:28-2:30, meaning one would think a sensible qualifying time would be in the 2:38 to 2:40 range.

In the end 2:47 is an impressive time, though it is unlikely that a 2:47 marathoner is ever going to improve to be a 2:20-2:25 marathoner with a shot at taking a medal.

There was another thread on this, claiming that the standard would be lowered to 2:39. Maybe just 2:42 for 2012 would be reasonable. Honestly, for someone who's training seriously, I don't think 2:47 qualifies as "good," let alone as exceptional.

Yanqui wrote:

There was another thread on this, claiming that the standard would be lowered to 2:39. Maybe just 2:42 for 2012 would be reasonable. Honestly, for someone who's training seriously, I don't think 2:47 qualifies as "good," let alone as exceptional.

Lets not get crazy. 2:47 is still good.

so we are complaining about the women's being too soft, but also want the B lowered to 2:25 or 2:30 from a lot of posters..

I too think its too soft but a bit hypocritical

I too think the 2:47 standard is soft. But has anyone on here actually taken a look at the IAAF standards for Beijing? From

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/standards/xml=beijing_2008/index.html

Mens A - 2:15:00

Mens B - 2:18:00

Womens A - 2:37:00

Womens B - 2:42:00

So the old Mens B qualifier of 2:22 was 4 minutes off the World standard, while the women's B qualifier is 5 minutes slower. I would say that both mens and womens US Trials standards are equally "soft".

Even under the new mens OT standards, someone who runs 2:18:59 would be considered a "A" qualifier for the Trials but couldn't even compete at the Olympics because he wouldn't have the World B standard.

only 18 women sub 2:39= only 18 woman that get their way paid by USATF

50+ men sub 2:20= 50+ men that get their way paid by USATF

dbfdsjf wrote:

only 18 women sub 2:39= only 18 woman that get their way paid by USATF

50+ men sub 2:20= 50+ men that get their way paid by USATF

But this is exactly my point. The reason all those guys ran sub-2:20 is that they were scared to death they would run 2:22:30 and not make it, so they trained as hard as they could and got 2:22 and a little more. Or, they were scared that the barrage of guys who ran 2:21 would bury them in the race, so they made sure to distance themselves from the pack.

With the women, we have really few of them running sub-2:39. Because it was possible for them to break 2:47 without having to even dream about 2:39. There are a lot of talented women out there who are very complacent sitting at 2:43-2:44. Maybe they all just wanted to make sure they qualified, and at the trials they'll go for it and there will be 80-something finishers sub-2:40. But I doubt it. I think they'll just go and savor the glory of being "B" qualifiers.

If the men's standard had been 2:27, we'd have the same problem. But because the men were scared of being losers who didn't even make the race, they were pushed to run 2:22 and beyond, and the result is we have a huge field of guys in the neighborhood of the Olympic "A" and "B" standards.