WSJ: Should the NYCM course be changed?

They should make 400m tracks a figure 8 instead of an oval.

conto, you do realize that the nycm used rabbits for years and it wasn't until recently that rabbits were eliminated? there were no 2:06 produced from all those years of rabbited races so your post doesn't make much sense.

go green wrote:

I think the main thing they could change is to come over to Manhattan at its southern tip, running past some downtown monuments, through times square, north to the bx, then back down 5th avenue and still finishing in central park, but somehow eliminating the 27 and 28th mile.

You would lose some of 4th avenue in brooklyn, williamsburg, the 59th street bridge and the 1st avenue blast.

You would gain the brooklyn or manhattan bridge, downtown, flatiron bldg, empire state and a maybe a better finish experience.

Not a bad tradeoff I think. The 1st avenue wall would be the biggest loss probably.

That would involve closing all crosstown streets below 59th St, Broadway, 5th and 6th Avenues, most of downtown and 2nd, 3rd, Park, Lex and Madison Avenues at 59th St. You would have to also handle 1,000s of shoppers wanting to cross the streets.

It could be practicable if the start was moved to 5am. The New York City half begins at 7:35, which means runners are finished running through Times by 10:00 am.

NYCM may be only 3 min slower for elites (or 4-5min for the rest of us), but only if you're well prepared, don't go out too fast, have the rights strategy for the hills/bridges etc.

The difference between a course like Berlin and NYC is shown on a bad day, when you may lose 5-10min in Berlin, this can easily be 20 in NYC.

Still a great course that should never be changed.

Endo, cool run, bad course.

You cannot go around the downtown monuments also go up to the Bronx if you're going to involve the other 3 boroughs at all. You'd be way around 26.2 miles if you did.

The Yankee Stadium idea is not a decent substitute for First Avenue and Central Park. Virtually all of the foreign visitors, and most of the out-of-state ones, are staying in Manhattan, and that's where their family and friends are, too.

Some of these suggested changes are just arbitrary, pointless, and impractical. Might as well take the Chicago Marathon into Indiana while you're at it.

robt abrams was the bronx borough president in 1976, he helped getting political/governmental support. percy refers to manhattan borough pres at that time percy sutton. if you care to look through the many pages of stuff on the creation of the 5 borough race and its politics you will find many conflicting reports and i am sure many misstatements.here comes the rocket scientists part of "marathoning ain`t rocket science" statementted corbitt-google him-and nyrrc tech committee member(founder?)paul milvy-likewise-WERE involved in setting the first course that is fact.the best story i ever heard that draws everything together =====while most likely not true==== is that george spitz an nyc govt bureaucrat and rr club member suggested a 5 borough team competition with runners representing each borough after the `72 race. he sends a letter to a local neighborhood newspaper that had editions for each boro and pitches the idea to fellow marathoner lebow and some other city workers. the idea kicks around for a while amongst various parks dept folks, politicians, rr club members ect and somehow the newly formed nyc bicentenial committe sends nyrrc a letter asking to outline the proposed course for a one time 1976 marathon through all five boroughs.lebows eyes light up and voila- did milvy give ozzie gontang the first gluose marathon fuel pill- i will say yes to that too.

???????? wrote:

Percy was vocal but without... wrote:

... the support of Robert Abrams there would have never been a Five Borough race in 1976.

Translation please?

I would just squeeze everyone into the Armory and have them do the race on the track. It would be hysterical to watch.

Track Fan wrote:

I would just squeeze everyone into the Armory and have them do the race on the track. It would be hysterical to watch.

sounds great I'm guessing you want to be the official lapcounter for that!

Doubt you'll find anyone challenging you for the job!

I`d say the traffic jam would not reach all the way to Allentown Pa and would not last much past Tuesday.

Has there ever been an official post 1976 NY Marathon poster that was not a picture of or had the Verrazano Narrows Bridge displayed on it?

Designing a course for about 200 runners with a finishing spread of half an hour is a lot easier and has more flexibility than one for 50,000 and a spread of 10 hours.

How big is the restroom at Nathans on Surf Ave?

This is what the first wave start might look like

agip wrote:

http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704635704575604541891533832.html

Piece in the WSJ about how some favor changing the NYCM course to take in more NYC landmarks, allow for larger fields, eliminate the 18-22 mile no mans land, and improving the post finish experience.

I am all in favor of changing it - walking a mile after the finish is a lonely death march, and missing all the landmarks is just weird. Turns out that the course was designed originally to AVOID all the busy parts of town, to bother people less. Putting the 20 mile mark in, say, times square, would be awesome.

But really - it has to start on the bridge.

It is a race, get it? [It is not a time trial]

I'm surprised everyone here is simply debating course integrity.

How are organizational decisions made? Politics. How are political decisions made? Money.

Politics says that all 5 neighborhoods need to be visited. But money suggests that if you can DOUBLE your number of entrants, from 40k to 80k, simply by changing the start line, why wouldn't you?

Is there a way they could hit all of 5boroughs while still expanding the start line to enlarge the race?

A larger race=more entry $.

larger race=more publicity, more publicity=more sponsorship $.

More $ to marathon=more $ to elite racers.

Why not find way to expand the course to fit more people, still keep the neighborhoods, but earn more money and expand the attention to the elite field by jacking up the prize purse?

You can't shut down the whole of Manhattan. It would cost the city a fortune as well as causing accidents as pedestrians, shoppers etc try and cross the road.

The idea of 80,000 people running the NYC marathon is ridiculous. Applicants are guaranteed registration after several unsuccessful attempts, so everyone in the world gets the chance to run it at least once.

If you want to run through Times Square, run the NYC Half.

I have run NYC twice in recent years, and quite frankly, they were the best two running experiences of my life (and I have raced for 27 years). I wouldn't mess with the course at all--it works incredibly well, and who cares if you run a few minutes slower, that is part of its beauty.

If you want to display the best of new York and its neighborhoods, you don't go to Times Square

Times Square once the home of porn movies and streetwalking whores has become the home of fastfood and other franchise whores.

Conto wrote:

The one thing that people always forget is that the NYC Marathon is a RACE. There are no rabbits. For 99.9% of the entrants, this makes no difference to their time. For the elites, it definitely makes a 1:00-2:00 difference at least. You would see a lot more 2:06 marathons in NY if you had rabbits... so then people would say that it was only 1:00-2:00 slow. A rabbited race wouldn't have a 4:27/14:00 1mile/5k thrown in at 17/17-20 or whatever it was. Nor would it start so slow. Given the explosion in fast marathon times is a recent phenomenon (last 5 years) the NYC Marathon has never had the ridiculously fast guys that are around today run with rabbits.

You want faster times in NY? Employ rabbits. That will solve "the problem" right there.

Conto you ignorant slut.

They got rid of rabbits four years ago because the rabbits never added anything to the race. In NYC the problem was never running fast enough in the first half, but slow enough. The last time that pacers were employed was 2006, and during the technical meeting of coaches and agents beforehand, no one could agree on the pace. Some wanted 1:04 some wanted 1:05, in the end, the entire field ignored the rabbits and hit the halfway mark in 1:05:35.

As far as the course goes, I have no idea why the NYRRC thinks that cutting into Central Park adds to the experience. It would be much better to go right down Fifth avenue to 59th street.

Also, what's wrong with a FOUR borough race? No one the Bronx gives a flying f*** about the marathon, so why run there at all. Cut across 125th street to CPW then back to 5th on 110th, down 5th to 59th and finish somewhere near Columbus Circle.

cut out staten island, no one considers it nyc anyway. Start at yankee stadium, over triborough bridge into queens down to brooklyn bridge, around the bottom of manhattan, back over to east side up and around central park and still finish at tavern. this could be 26.2

If people are so worried about fast times then why don't we start running marathons on a goddamn track?!?!

I've never run close to Ms. Kastor's P.R. but this kind of garbage pisses me off:

"It was a choice not to do New York and try to go somewhere and run fast" said Ms. Kastor.

Fine. Do it onece or twice. Then take on the challenge and run New York or Boston and forget about time and go for a win.

The marathon is run on the roads for a reason. If you're afraid of a few hills then stay on the track.