Most people will never get a chance to run Boston, and that's the draw for those that are qualifying. The exclusivity is the draw, and there is an option if you can't time qualify...Charity.
Want a marathon they can just sign up for and run? There are thousands
. and get rid of joke hang glide down a mountain courses. keep things as fair and transparent as possible.
koflloozie, have you ever run one of those 'joke hang glide down a mountain' courses? Hmmm. Didn't think so. You sure are an expert for someone lacking the experience.
I've run one before and did not find it to be the 'piece of cake' all the naysayers claim.
i'm definitely not an expert, but sage canaday is a two time olympic trials qualifier who once came in 16th place at Boston and appears to agree with me. i think he probably knows what he is talking about.
i'm not sure why your family or career is relevant to this discussion. you seem angry. my best guess is that someone close to you used one of these courses to qualify and you are defending his or her "honor" by proxy. you are certainly entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine
I'm not hanging my hat on anything, I am directly refuting your assertion that an "expert lacking the experience" would hold a view similar to my own by providing one of many examples of very talented and experienced runners who also appear to share the view that certain courses should be disallowed for Boston Qualification
running a marathon is never easy for most people, so "hang glide down a mountain" is obviously a joking exaggeration. but the "facts and known data" that you apparently love so much do not lie. take a look at the mean, median, and normal distribution of times for extreme downhill Boston qualifiers versus even a pancake flat time trial course and you will see that gravity confers a significant advantage. i don't think these courses would be so popular and loudly advertising themselves as last chance / high % BQ completion rate unless that were the case. it's just physics
anyway, my point is that instead of introducing an absurd edge case lottery system, perhaps we could cut down on the number of BQ applicants by making that standard more uniformly legitimate and stringent in the first place. one of the ways to do that and make sure people are -- literally -- on a level playing field... is to set a maximum allowable elevation change. there are other options as well. i apologize if this comes off as a personal attack to you. it's not
These influencers are peddling to their main audience, people who have just discovered running and trying to get in Boston.
16 year streaker here. I have not met any other streaker who is ever on the bubble of not getting in even with the cutoffs - which we do not need to beat. Good luck telling the guy who finishes the thing with a stress fracture to keep his streak alive he has to sit this one out for someone slower than him so they can get to experience running it. Life is not fair, train harder.
something to consider on high percentage of BQs at the "hang glide down a mountain" marathons is also that basically 99.9% of the people signing up for these are already on the cusp of a BQ and looking for a little advantage or already ran a BQ and looking to improve. Unlike a normal Marathon field, the majority of these fields are already in BQ striking distance or achieved. Yes the downhill does help but the % of qualifiers in these races are still skewed because compared to most, it's a more skilled field. No one is flying up to Washington to run down a mountain unless they are somewhat close.
beyond a shadow of a doubt they help, but not as much as people think, and there is probably an increased tail risk of blowing up if improperly trained
findmymarathon has an equivalent time calculator tool. says a 3 hour marathon at Philly (random flat-ish course) would be a 2:51 at REVEL Big Bear (chose one of the REVEL races also at random)
probably somewhere in that ball park. who knows. the problem is, minutes can mean thousands of applicants with a tight cut-off.
easiest solution IMO is to institute the same limits as the 2024 Olympic trials: "elevation loss no greater than 3.30 meters/km." Boom. Done. Easy.
Can someone confirm for my own understanding, that this means for the 18-34 age group men, a time of 6:51 under the standard (3:00) qualified, so the real standard to hit was 2:53:09?
That's correct. I am in the older bracket now so it's a bit easier for me, but I chuckled thinking about my submitted time -- 2:53:08! 5 years ago I would have been sweating bullets..
i'm definitely not an expert, but sage canaday is a two time olympic trials qualifier who once came in 16th place at Boston and appears to agree with me. i think he probably knows what he is talking about.
All this talk about the crazy downhills makes me want to try CIM next year since it seems to be the best race to run fast times in that people respect.
Find the best downhill marathon for your next PR or BQ. Compare the elevations of different downhill marathons at the same scale. Net Elevation Loss, Elevation Gain, Total Elevation Loss and more stats.
I'm running Tunnels next year for giggles. It's a beautiful area of the country and I can go drink good wine after. Had a few friends that have run it and they all rave at how fast it is. Was up there a few years ago to spectate and that was the rave at the finish line as well. (there were plenty of people that were nowhere near BQ times that signed up for it as well) Never run a downhill marathon but have done a downhill half and that thing was screaming! I'm a bit older but still a solid BQ+20 so will be interesting to see how it flushes out.
beyond a shadow of a doubt they help, but not as much as people think, and there is probably an increased tail risk of blowing up if improperly trained
findmymarathon has an equivalent time calculator tool. says a 3 hour marathon at Philly (random flat-ish course) would be a 2:51 at REVEL Big Bear (chose one of the REVEL races also at random)
probably somewhere in that ball park. who knows. the problem is, minutes can mean thousands of applicants with a tight cut-off.
easiest solution IMO is to institute the same limits as the 2024 Olympic trials: "elevation loss no greater than 3.30 meters/km." Boom. Done. Easy.
That means Boston itself couldn't be used as a qualifier--and there is NO way that is happening!
