Get your BQ

It drops over 5,000 ft! This is just dumb, it shouldn’t count for a BQ. Soon they’ll count times from parachuting down from an airplane 26.2 miles in the air.

BQ = Blown Quads

I'm doing it, in Heelys.

This race is my neck of the woods and I know quite a few runners doing it for PR or BQ attempts. Should be interesting to see what kind of times people will be getting with 5000 ft net elevation drop.

Anyone claiming a 5000 ft downhill course as their PR is just sad. Pretty much the same as claiming a short course as a PR.

Outrageous. When will the idiots at the BAA finally react?

What makes the Erie Marathon so damn good for Boston qualifying? Not downhill, just a basic flat course like a lot of other marathons. Yet, 46% of the field qualified?! This is way more than any of the downhill Revel courses.

Erie is eerie wrote:

http://www.marathonguide.com/races/BostonMarathonQualifyingRaces.cfm

What makes the Erie Marathon so damn good for Boston qualifying? Not downhill, just a basic flat course like a lot of other marathons. Yet, 46% of the field qualified?! This is way more than any of the downhill Revel courses.

(1) It may that a lot of people running it are serious runners that may have barely missed a BQ in a Spring marathon and see Erie on the calendar the weekend before the qualifying window closes. (I am guessing that most people are not going to take the trouble of getting to Erie, Pennsylvania unless they are close to a BQ.)

(2) These same people train hard in the Summer heat and then run a flat, shaded marathon with cooler temperatures than they have been training in.

Erie actually got recently got rid of its half marathon to open up slots for the marathon.

This not fair to the people just missing a BQ on a more or less flat course.

I got my bib mule hired for NYC.

See you in Boson in 2020

I like how people act like downhill courses are new, I ran a downhill BQ over 20 years ago, still to this day my lifetime PR is from Chicago though. People act like downhill is some god speed thing they don’t even look at the results though, u might gain 30 seconds to a minute but you aren’t gaining 10-30 mins as some claim. The reason most people run slower than even flat races is because u will cramp or blow ur quads and hams out sprinting downhill Thousands of feet. It’s way more predictable just doinf Chicago or Indy which are pancake flat.

Timmy b wrote:

I like how people act like downhill courses are new, I ran a downhill BQ over 20 years ago, still to this day my lifetime PR is from Chicago though. People act like downhill is some god speed thing they don’t even look at the results though, u might gain 30 seconds to a minute but you aren’t gaining 10-30 mins as some claim. The reason most people run slower than even flat races is because u will cramp or blow ur quads and hams out sprinting downhill Thousands of feet. It’s way more predictable just doinf Chicago or Indy which are pancake flat.

Mt. Rebel website says you get a 20 second per mile benefit. They also suggest the grade is gentle enough to not destroy your quads. The people i know who have run them have pr'ed by about 10 minutes.

And downhill marathons may not be new, but there seems to be a growth in races with downhill profiles which probably accounts for the bq times getting tougher.

FFF wrote:

https://www.runrevel.com/rbb

Why even bother running then?

Do they close the road? At this one Revel you ran on shoulder of very busy highway.

Holy crap that was fast! Results show a 44-yo woman winning in 1:44:09 (3:58 mile pace) and a 64-yo man running 1:53:03. Move over Kipchoge!

Just looking at one of the top finishers.

Ran 1:14:36 for the half at Big Bear. Checked marathonguide.com for recent marathon results and here's what I found.

March 2017 - 2:55:19

May 2017 - 3:04:50

May 2017 - 2:59:49 (confirmed downhill mara)

July 2017 - 3:04:46

August 2017 - 3:02:24

May 2018 - 2:47:42 (confirmed downhill mara)

Granted this is only an experiment of one but it gives a little insight into the effect of the course on time.

Not very fast times, especially for a downhill course. The overall male winner ran 2:34:25 and the overall female winner ran 2:47:21.

LoneStarXC wrote:

Not very fast times, especially for a downhill course. The overall male winner ran 2:34:25 and the overall female winner ran 2:47:21.

Agreed, but I scanned through the results and there are lots of folks with 4-10 minutes negative splits!!! That's just CRAZY... The male winner: 5 min.; female: 2.5 min. neg. splits... The male winner has a legit Boston '16 2:33 time, and other marathons in the 2:33-2:38 range in the last 2 years... So, he looks solid. The female winner has 3:08 from Boston '18 (tough year, I give it to her), and then 2:52 from the same Revel event a year earlier... Who knows, she might be legit, too...

It gets crazier for slower folks... And if they are just close enough to their qualifying time, it WILL REALLY help them to get over and qualify, provided they run it smart;)

I looked at the winner in my AG (45-49), he finished in 2:50, 8 minute negative split... Couldn't find a better result than 3:15 for him in the MarathonGuide past results. Sure, he might have been in better shape overall for this one but still, that's a ridiculous improvement at that age... Just saying;)

This really is a bit shady way to qualify for Boston:(

PS: Not that I really care, I beat my qualifying times by 30 minutes, easily, but if I was just right around the BQ cut-offs, it'd piss me, too... So, I feel for you...

roller skates allowed? wrote:

Holy crap that was fast! Results show a 44-yo woman winning in 1:44:09 (3:58 mile pace) and a 64-yo man running 1:53:03. Move over Kipchoge!

Those are halfs... LOL