Why wasn't Boston course aided for the non-elites?

Another stat;

5.98% of the field broke three hours in 2010.

6.35% broke three in 2011, not much of a change.

a lot of the runners that show up for Boston are just happy to be there. They show up injured and undertrained often...not in PB shape! Most likely their best marathon training and racing was required to get the qualifier in the first place....thus slower times.

A tail wind helps way more when you are alone so the wind can push you along. If you are in a giant pack or among lots of people the wind doesn't help as much.

But goodgoodfriday has a good point.

Obviously because the non-elites were in big packs. Just as you can minimize the effect of a headwind by being within a few feet behind someone in front of you, so are you helped less by a tailwind by having someone a few feet behind you taking some of the help it provides.

winter was also worse this year in the northeast, so slower people probably stayed inside more

All of the above are valid points but those points were also valid in 2010. We are comparing last year to this year. In 2010 there were just as many 'enjoy the moment' types running, the winter was even worse in 2010, and the runners did not start running in packs in 2011 and the packs thin out fairly early in Boston.

Mid Pack wrote:

and the packs thin out fairly early in Boston.

Actually quite the opposite they out later than most races. That's why Boston tried 3 waves this year instead of two. It didnt help much

It has nothing to do with anything posted so far. Not being in a pack or anything else.

What separates elites from the masses is obvious -- they are highly trained racing machines. They are not merely participating, they are competeting -- and they are competing at the extreme edges of human performance.

The non-elite are simply sloggging, and they are going to slog at virtually the same pace not matter what the wind does at their backs. It's their fitness that's limiting them, not other extraneous issues.

Turn elites around and have them go against the wind and you'd see that the difference between joggers and the elites is even greater. Have elites run 26 miles uphill and the difference will be greater as well. A warm day? You guessed it, elites will perform much better, relatively, than non-elites.

It's the fitness stupid!

The only elites that do not see the huge benefit from winds are those who blow up, and blows ups happen to elites even on perfect days with no winds on loop courses. Blow up are the result of racing to the edge and then stepping off the cliff.

The difference between 2010 and 2011 times isn't very much on average. The winter in 2011 was much worse (in some parts of the country) than in 2010...which would effect training quality for many. The weather at 2010 Boston was nearly perfect, with some element of a tailwind as well (just not as strong).

Mid Pack wrote:

All of the above are valid points but those points were also valid in 2010. We are comparing last year to this year. In 2010 there were just as many 'enjoy the moment' types running, the winter was even worse in 2010, and the runners did not start running in packs in 2011 and the packs thin out fairly early in Boston.

You can do this as an experiment of one. Yourself. When you are in shape notice how fast you can run with the wind at your back?

Now imagine back to the days when you were are out of shape. You will find that the wind at your back isn't going to help you much. With poor fitness all runs become pretty much the same.

Well,

The times for non-elites actually fluctuate greatly in proportion to good or bad conditions, up or down. The percent finishing under three hours can vary from 1% to 5% at places like Columbus and Chicago.

Stupid, recreational runners like me watch these types of stats when choosing courses to break personal time barriers.

The total elevation gain is also very c/w finishing times rather than net elevation gain. A course with no more than 500 or so feet of gain with a net uphill of 100 feet is much faster than a course with a net downhill of 100 feet but 1100 feet of gain, like Pittsburgh or Cincy.

Our slogging is actually quite affected by these differences.

I watched the entire race live on Universal sports and was actually surprised by the shots of the early hills showing plenty of room for the average Joes.

Malmo, I'm one of the sloggers, I was "fortunate" enough to run my first marathon in Chicago 07', your thoughts echo mine about that day. Only in that case it was the elites mitigating the effects of heat far better than us sloggers. If memory serves me the winner ran around 2:11, obviously much slower than usual, but the extreme conditions had far more impact on the sloggers on the course, ultimately leading to the shutdown of the race. I am happy to report however that my slogging has improved a great deal, I finished Chicago around in around 5hrs, I came off an injury and slogged Boston in 3:15 with a big negative.

PS: To the peanut gallery, I know that's still slow.

sorry, but most of those sub 3 hr runners are doing very little different in the race from the elites. they're not "slogging" or "competeting" (competitive eating?); they are pushing it as hard as they can go and the wind pushes them along as much as anyone. your prejudices are unhelpful here. Is it that many of us would kick your ass if you were out there competing now at your advanced age? You gave all that up way back, right? Is that why you're alway heaping scorn on those of us who lack the talent or the right age? Scorn those who don't put everything into it. That's fine. But leave the rest out of it. Those 30 or 40 minutes back in a marathon are putting it all out there as well, to speak of most people. They just have no talent or don't know how to train or are too old to do it. Come out to NYC and kick my ass on the course this year and then talk it up.

Mid pack, that's what I said, sloggers will be affected disproportionally by poor conditions, but will not reap the advantages of good conditions to the degree that the elites would.

You won't understand this. Anyone who has ever been elite knows that even on easy runs their paces cahnge a lot when the get a tail wind. Those same runners, when they are not fit as they were in the day, if they go out on a run on a windy day, then turn around with the winds at their backs, it will be a huge relief, but they won't be able to, hmmm. run like the wind....

.

You have real issues. No one is heaping scorn on you, hothead.

It doesn't matter why you are not elite, whether it be 'talent', 'don't know how to train' or 'too old to do it.' The result is the same. You are not running on the edge of human performance and simply will not be helped by the wind as much as an elite would.

For me, jogging and "my Olympics" would be nearly the same pace. There could be a 40 mph wind at my back and I couldn't go any faster. In the day, it would be quite different -- just set out the sails and let my legs run.

Are you guys just convinced the world is flat? A friend of mine got bad achilles tendonitis about 8 weeks out from Boston this year. He ran a total of 50 miles in the 7 weeks leading up to it however he did cross train by swimming, biking, and elliptical. He ran a 3:04 to pr by about 30 seconds I believe. No way he does that without a tailwind. Another story, this one from 1983 when they also had a massive tailwind. Another friend, this guy a training partner and normally 2:20-2:22 marathoner (pr 2:20) runs a 10k 2-3 weeks out from Boston and runs about 31:30-31:50. He then goes to Boston and runs 2:18, a time he never came close to again. You guys who don't think the wind helped people alot more than the course hurt them are insane.

Try this. What ruins people at Boston is the 1-2 punch of the downhills out of the gate and then the other downhills at ~21 miles (and you can add the descent at 25K if you like). The effect of the hills is like radiation poisoning; once you've overdone it by opening up your stride too much in the first 20-30 minutes of the race (depending on your pace), the effects of the pounding, while not yet evident, are irreversible and WILL show up later.

Now, elite runners can almost outrun this effect, because even if they shit the bed they're done in well under 2 1/2 hours. Not so for the sloggers. When sloggers get the boost from the tailwind, it pushes them down the hill just as it does faster runners, but they still aren't fast enough to outrun the mechanical damage thus incurred. Someone who in theory might go from 3:30 to 3:20+ thanks to wind alone is going to still get badly beat up starting at about two hours in, right at that shitty downhill leading into Newton Lower Falls. Sure, they haven't burned any more glycogen in taking advantage of the wind early on, or gotten more "tired," but being shoved along still puts a big strain on the chassis even if the engine's not taxed.

So this, in my view, is why the sloggers don't get quite the same boost from the wind *at Boston* as the elites do.

In terms of downhill races and sloggers vs. elites in general, the sloggers actually gain *more* of an advantage than they elites do as long as the race is short enough to render mechanical pounding a non-issue. Look at the Millennium Mile up in New England every year. The fastest guys are usually 4:00-4:10 types on the track who pick up perhaps 10-12 seconds from the hill (not counting wind, which can obviously go either way). If the 6:00 milers got a similar percentile boost, they'd gain about 15-20 seconds. But it's clearly more like 30, and the peoplle who can't break 7:30 on a track are almost a minute faster. The explanation? Fast runners are already mechanically very efficient and moving close to as fast as they would if not limited by fitness, whereas the sloggers might be just as "fit" by cardiopulmonary metrics, but don't have the drivetrain to get it done. So they can fall down the hill to greater relative effect than can runners who are already smooth machines.

malmo wrote:

Mid pack, that's what I said, sloggers will be affected disproportionally by poor conditions, but will not reap the advantages of good conditions to the degree that the elites would.

You won't understand this. Anyone who has ever been elite knows that even on easy runs their paces cahnge a lot when the get a tail wind. Those same runners, when they are not fit as they were in the day, if they go out on a run on a windy day, then turn around with the winds at their backs, it will be a huge relief, but they won't be able to, hmmm. run like the wind....

You actually argued out of both sides of your ass actually saying..."going to slog at the same pace no matter what"...

You obviously don't understand the following; running under three hours at 160 to 170 pounds, I feel subtle changes in the wind on my runs quicker than you possibly could ever have, runnning with I must assume was a tiny, thin frame.

Playing major college Rugby, my 4.5 forty speed on a frame able to bench 400 pounds was very sensitive to wind conditions. Stow your athletics elitism where it belongs.

In my fifties, with a body not suited to distance running, I can finish in the top two percent of the field in major marathon events.

You, however, in the best days of your athletic career, would not have lasted one day on the fields of the sports where I excelled.

Mid Pack wrote:

You obviously don't understand the following; running under three hours at 160 to 170 pounds, I feel subtle changes in the wind on my runs quicker than you possibly could ever have, runnning with I must assume was a tiny, thin frame.

You're a fool.

I'm not talking out of both sides of my ass, I'm telling you what is going on. You should be taking notes, you are unqualified to be teaching the class.