Let’s put it this way, the net elevation loss on this course means all times run today are not record eligible, nor do they count as IAAF qualifiers.
If the Olympic trials were held on this course in 2 years and someone finished in the top 3 but didn’t have the Olympic standard on another course, they would NOT be going to Tokyo.
GWT wrote:
I've run around 10 CIM's and 8 Bostons. Thirty marathons total. For many years i chased sub 2:30 along with a group of my friends who were also from Nor Cal. My usual go to races each year were Cal in the fall and then Boston in the spring but i ran some SF marathons and several others. Overall my times were pretty similar on the two courses depending on conditions. CIM has a net drop, but as mentioned previously the hills in the first 1/2 don't allow you to just float through them. Boston has 16 miles of mostly down, followed by 5 miles of some pretty tough and ill placed climbs. I had a number of friends who ran Chicago several times, as well as CIM and Boston. It seemed from my perspective that Chicago ran a bit quicker than CIM back then, if they had good weather to work with. With all of this said, I was out there this morning. Conditions were PERFECT. It was cloudy last night and rained in the very early am hours. By 5am the sky was clear but the usual freezing temps that come with the clear skies weren't there because it had been cloudy all night. The blacktop was dry by race time and temps were absolutely ideal. I drove the course with the women's lead vehicle and there appeared to be No wind whatsoever. Today was a perfect storm of sorts. Amazing fields due to US championships, a fast course, and ideal conditions. With fewer gaps between groups, everyone seemed to run faster than usual. I must also add that SRA does a fantastic job of hosting and I hope the championships come back to Sac down the road.
I ran yesterday, it felt like I didn't sweat an ounce yet at no point did I feel cold. The porridge was just right.
So, when I read about anyone walking at mile 21, I just shake my head.
I'm so happy I made the trip.
Runners who OTQ'd are in a great position. They have two years of no-pressure running to work on their game.
random hobby jogger wrote:
This is what races were like in the 80s and 90s. i remember seeing race results from a 10 miler in stockton ca from the early 80s. 150 people broke 60min.
CIM doesn't pay big bucks in prize money so it doesn't attract the super elite. but it's a quality race so it's great for people chasing fast times.
Yep. In my attic, I recently came across my finishers popsicle stick recording my 400+ place finish with a 3:04 time at the Cleveland Marathon in the early eighties.
That same time about 10 years ago was good for about 40th place with about the same number of entrants as 30 years ago.
One year I ran sub-55 at Cal10. Finished 256th. When running was strong and had depth.
Runners who OTQ'd are in a great position. They have two years of no-pressure running to work on their game.[/quote]
No one that will be a factor at the trials feels pressure to hit a qualifying time. That is a total formality for the real runners. I don't eve remember an Olympian bragging about getting their trials standard.
If I had to choose PR conditions, I'd run Chicago's course but with CIM's weather. I think you're underestimating the impact of terrain over 26.2 compared to a flat course. I'm not saying CIM isn't fast - it is. But do you make similar arguments about Chicago or Berlin being a joke compared to NYC?
CIM has reliably great marathon temperatures, which gets overlooked in the downhill discussion. Chicago was hot this year and Boston was too hot the last two years.
Ridiculous X 100 wrote:
No one that will be a factor at the trials feels pressure to hit a qualifying time. That is a total formality for the real runners. I don't eve remember an Olympian bragging about getting their trials standard.
Successful people don't have your mindset.
Tyler Pennel is a great example of someone who worked on his non-marathon speed leading up to the 2016 trials. He was in the hunt for the third spot.
Chris Clark heat-trained for over a year, PR'd by 8 minutes. It happens.
https://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/how-chris-clark-broke-throughNo sweat runner wrote:
Ridiculous X 100 wrote:
No one that will be a factor at the trials feels pressure to hit a qualifying time. That is a total formality for the real runners. I don't eve remember an Olympian bragging about getting their trials standard.
Successful people don't have your mindset.
Tyler Pennel is a great example of someone who worked on his non-marathon speed leading up to the 2016 trials. He was in the hunt for the third spot.
Chris Clark heat-trained for over a year, PR'd by 8 minutes. It happens.
https://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/how-chris-clark-broke-through
Chris Clark was a fluke at the all time low in American Distance Running. Please list her top 5 marathon times and prove my point.
Tyler Pennel won his debut marathon so I'm pretty sure getting his qualifier was simply a formality.
Thanks for playing.
Christine Clark qualified for the Trials in the Fall of 1999 and ran the Trials in the spring of 2000.
SHE PREPARED IN LESS THAN 6 MONTHS.
2000: 19th at Olympic marathon (2:31:35)...won Olympic Trials with PR 2:33:31 (seeded #22)...suffered from plantar fascitis in June... ranked #1 in U.S. by T&FN... best of 2:31.35.
1999: 3rd at Twin Cities Marathon, USA Championship...won Anchorage Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon for third time (also 1995 and 1998)... best of 2:40:38.
1998: 2nd Portland Marathon...best of 2:47:14.
1996: 76th at Olympic Trials (2:51:07).
1995: Won Seattle Marathon...best of 2:49:21.
I ran at CIM yesterday. The weather was fantastic as has been pointed out. The competition level was also really high to begin with as I know fast people from throughout the country who have been gunning for this race for months.
What got me were all the kind of steep rolling downhills that trashed my quads by mile 20 if not earlier. The uphills probably cost a little time but were no problem to deal with. All my long tempos were flat due to where I live so my legs weren't ready for the punishment of the downhills. Need to figure out a way to deal with it next time, lifting weights maybe.
But if you are prepared to handle the downhills then it could be blazing. Probably some types of runners would be faster here and others somewhere like Chicago.
Non of the graphs shown are to scale. The elevation changes shown in feet have no accurate relationship to the distance shown in miles. These graphs are like a comic book version of "War and Peace."
It seems like there are a lot of East Coast cynics desperately trying to find a way to diminish anything "California'.'
You remind me of the Black Knight in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.' Or the old man who claimed he had to walk to school uphill in the snow in the morning and uphill in the snow to get back home in the afternoon. If you're jealous just move here.
No sweat runner wrote:
So, when I read about anyone walking at mile 21, I just shake my head.
.
Stinson kind of disrespected the distance and IMO blew a great and rare opportunity. Maybe it was inevitable that someone would do so. Props to Ritchie for using his hard-earned experience for a great time and a U.S. title.
CIM is fair.... fast yes, but fair.... those rollers in there are not easy . it's also 26.2 miles. no 26.2 mile race is easy
I ran CIM yesterday.
Garmin says I climbed 681 ft and descended 1017 feet (that is a net drop of 336, which is close to the 340 foot drop reported on the course map, in which you start at 366' altitude and finish at 26')). Garmin says my min was 16' and max was 362'.
There was plenty of uphill, but there was more downhill.
If you put 681' of climbing and 1017' of descending into the running calculator at runworks.com, you find that you would run 0.5% faster on a perfectly flat course. As a previous poster said, you lose more going up than you gain going down.
Looking at the effects separately, If you climb 681 ft over a marathon (and don't have any downhills at all), the calculator says that you will be 2.5% slower than on flat ground.
If you descend 1,017 ft over a marathon (and don't have any uphills at all), the calculator says that you will 2% faster on flat ground.
The percentages might come out differently at different speeds; I only input the speed I ran, which is slow (somewhere in the 7's per mile).
The weather was great: temperature and wind, and these make a huge difference in running 26.2.
whoops, fixing a typo:
I ran CIM yesterday.
Garmin says I climbed 681 ft and descended 1017 feet (that is a net drop of 336, which is close to the 340 foot drop reported on the course map, in which you start at 366' altitude and finish at 26')). Garmin says my min was 16' and max was 362'.
There was plenty of uphill, but there was more downhill.
If you put 681' of climbing and 1017' of descending into the running calculator at runworks.com, you find that you would run 0.5% faster on a perfectly flat course. As a previous poster said, you lose more going up than you gain going down.
Looking at the effects separately, If you climb 681 ft over a marathon (and don't have any downhills at all), the calculator says that you will be 2.5% slower than on flat ground.
If you descend 1,017 ft over a marathon (and don't have any uphills at all), the calculator says that you will 2% faster than on flat ground.
The percentages might come out differently at different speeds; I only input the speed I ran, which is slow (somewhere in the 7's per mile).
The weather was great: temperature and wind, and these make a huge difference in running 26.2.
All you people bashing downhill courses-
A net downhill of 500 feet over a marathon is less than a .4% net down grade. 0.4%! Not even noticeable when you are running it.
Even courses having upwards of 2000 feet of net downhill must start at high elevation to make that kind of drop possible. St. George has an average elevation of 4200 feet. The elevation easily counteracts most of the downhill advantage. On top of that, elevation change changes your pace based on percentage, so while a 4 hour marathoner at St. George might gain 7 minutes of advantage, a 2:15 marathoner will only gain about 3 minutes from the downhill, and THEN they have to overcome the elevation disadvantage.
A marathon is a marathon is a marathon. Don't knock performances when you haven't run on the same course. It may surprise you that 26.2 miles is a long hard race no matter where it is.
I do think that for consistency's sake, there need to be regulations on record eligible and OTQ courses. But CIM is by no means a gimmick course.
See this article for more info:
can anyone identify if these shoes are vaporfly or just the same seasonal color scheme?
CIM sillyness wrote:
better 3D example of the course profile so people understand why so many OTQ
https://i.imgur.com/jY15g8F.jpg
THIS IS NOT AN ACCURATE ELEVATION PROFILE
According to pretty much any Strava activity for somebody running CIM, the "grade adjusted pace" is basically identical to your average pace, which means that the uphills, although there are fewer, slow you down exactly as much as the downhills speed you up (within 1 second per mile). I know GPS isn't perfect, but the CIM course has no large objects or tree cover that would impact GPS and there are also very few turns, making tangents practically a non-issue.
Everyone if focused on the course for why there were so many OT qualifiers. How about the performance bonuses below? Run 2:18 at New York and they'll probably just give you a finisher's medal.
Performance Bonuses (athletes only able to earn ONE performance bonus):
Olympic Trials A Standard: $1500 (available to all athletes that reach standard)
Olympic Trials B Standard: $500 (available to all athletes that reach standard)
Counter point : Nothing easy about running an OTQ.
If you are shooting for sub 2:20 but also wanting to run a "hard" marathon course, you are an idiot. Take every advantage you can. 2:11 is a super solid CIM time.
I’m a D2 female runner. Our coach explicitly told us not to visit LetsRun forums.
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