Changed Marathon Trials numbers

I've posted five or six times with the same screen name.

Ray, did you get the handouts prior to the meeting? What's crazy in this instance is that according to other Oedipal-afflicted letsrun posters, there were Committee members that had no idea this change would be discussed.

Joseph McVeigh wrote:

But assuming that US 2:18-2:30 runners are Adam Smith-ian rational actors, the fact that we see so very few of them run Boston relative to other non-aided courses tells you something about how "fast" that "aided" course is.

I always thought of Boston as a crapshoot. If you figured that you were realistically at least a minute or two away from your target time on a loop course, then maybe you just rolled the dice and went to Boston. If the weather was bad, you went bust. If the weather was good, maybe you saved the family farm.

Back in the 70s and early 80s, Boston was the place to go for that gamble. In '75, the gamble paid off. In '76, the gamble was a disaster. '77 was pretty bad, but '78 and '79 were excellent.

'83 was the last year when Boston was really packed with OT hopefuls, and it paid off for many of them. After that, though, faster Americans stayed away. Part of that, for a year or two, was Boston's refusal to pay prize money or appearance fees, as well as a general shakeout in shoe company sponsorships for many American runners. In '86, Boston started paying, and international stars like Rob DeCastella (who "PRed" there), John Treacy (who "PRed" there), Seko, and Jones started to show up, with a number of great African runners thereafter. But the faster Americans often had more remunerative alternatives elsewhere.

As for the guys in the 2:22 to 2:30 range, I'm not sure why they didn't continue to flock to Boston. Maybe there were just faster alternatives elsewhere.

Depending on the new list of OT qualifiers, Boston may return as the spring marathon choice for many OT hopefuls, with Chicago as the default choice for a fall marathon.

We are still waiting for you to prove your PR in the marathon. I am sure you were an 11 min high school two miler. I am wondering why you have such an interest in this. Did you run the race this Nov.3? Prove your PR.

Man, I disagree with some of what A.N. says as well, but if you read all his posts he is clearly knowledgeable AND genuine. I also believe he DOES have the best interests of the sport and runners at heart... so it is probably better to turn your attentions to one of the more bitter/jaded posters on this thread? He only said that MOST runners are no where near their potential. From my own experience as an athlete and manager I can tell you that is both TRUE and GOOD news. It gives people a reason to train harder. As soon as you kid yourself into believing that you already did everything you can then you may as well stop training and "master" a different sport.

[quote]Avocados Number wrote:

Back in the 70s and early 80s, Boston was the place to go for that gamble. In '75, the gamble paid off. In '76, the gamble was a disaster. '77 was pretty bad, but '78 and '79 were excellent.

'83 was the last year when Boston was really packed with OT hopefuls, and it paid off for many of them. After that, though, faster Americans stayed away. (quote)

With a pr of 2:24, I ran Boston in '84, hoping to qualify for the trials, by running a 219 or faster. It was a last ditch effort and the cold headwind and cold rain were disheartening. I should have run it in '83 when the conditions were perfect. Not sure if it would have mattered for me though, the DOWNHILLs totally hammered my quads and reduced me to walking/jogging by 20 miles.

Avocados Number wrote:

Among those of us who have followed the results at Boston a few decades longer than you have, the Boston marathon is recognized as an aided course, and cool temps and a tailwind will produce times for many runners that they couldn't match on a record-quality course.

Among those of us who have been following the results at Boston since the 70s and grew up living right on the course and have run it a few times ourselves, it is recognized as no such thing.

Take those guys from 1994 and put them on Chicago and you are going to get faster times across the board. N'Deti is certainly faster there than 2:07:15

Personally, I'm pretty indifferent to the standard being increased to 2:19. The only way the standard being changed would affect me is if they lowered it to 2:30. However, I think I have the same problems with this that a few others do which are:

1) The way it was handled in that it doesn't sound like there was a lot of discussion among a good number of people. More like a decision made quickly a long way away by a few people.

2) I'm not sure why this decision was made or that it has a positive rather than a negative impact on US distance running. I don't think it "raises the bar" because it doesn't have any impact on how many people will hit the Olympic standard or have a legit shot at the Olympic Team. The standard would need to be lowered to 2:14 or better for that. Also, it doesn't seem like the size of the field needed to be reduced. The number of qualifiers under the old standards were never likely to exceed 200 and that's a stretch and still not a big field.

Just seems like to me that the major reason behind the whole change is some people at USATF wanted to prove they could do whatever they wanted (which I guess is true).

The problem is other good courses are knocked out too. LA, New York, Napa, CIM, and Grandmas all do not meet the 30% rule. To be fair they should stick to the rules but the USATF is never really fair are they.

And thinking of CIM. If the USATF says their course does not count will they continue to sponsor the PAUSATF long road racing series? I mean they want them to pony up money but say thier race doesn't count? I mean this is another race where their aren't blazing times...

Does the Twin Cities Marathon course meet the within 30% start-finish separation rule? I recall it was ~ 8 miles between the start-finish for this race, so it seems like it would be close. Unless I do not understand the rule correctly.

As a 2 time qualifier, how do you feel about this decision? Were any representatives of the B.A.A. part of this decision?

Average_Joe wrote:

Among those of us who have been following the results at Boston since the 70s and grew up living right on the course and have run it a few times ourselves, it is recognized as no such thing.

Take those guys from 1994 and put them on Chicago and you are going to get faster times across the board. N'Deti is certainly faster there than 2:07:15

Well, why don't you stop by Bill Rodgers's place and ask him what he thinks? (Bill, by the way, ran about 90 seconds faster at Boston than he ever did on a record-quality course.) Steve Hoag, who finished second to Rodgers in '75, also posts here and will probably give you an honest answer. (I don't recall that Steve ever came within three or four minutes of his Boston time on any record-quality course, although I think he could have come closer than he did.) Benji Durden, who finished third in '83 with a 2:09:57 (as I recall), is also a straight shooter about such things and also posts here occasionally. (Benji's fastest on a record-quality course was at Houston, as I recall, in the range of 2:11+.) Most of the top American runners (sub-2:10) who have run Boston at some point during their peak years -- Rodgers, Meyer, Durden, Beardsley, Tabb, Bob K., Barrios (assuming he was a U.S. citizen at the time), Salazar (although his short-course NYC race in 1981 may have been at a marginally faster pace) -- ran their "PRs" there. The others, like Culpepper and Meb, came close, and almost certainly would have done so if they had run Boston under more favorable weather and race conditions.

In years like '75 and '94, Boston was a ridiculously aided race. I don't mean a St. George's type of "ridiculously aided," or probably even a 2006 Austin type of "ridiculously aided," but probably more than a CIM type of aided.

(None of this is to suggest, by the way, that a pacerless Boston race is likely to produce faster times than a pacing arrangement of the type that Geb ran in Berlin, where six guys surrounded him in a way designed to minimize air resistance.)

Anyway, I'm glad to see a few of the more extreme races get dropped from the OT list. If Boston stays, that's not a big deal to me, although it smacks of favortism and inconsistency.

t.shea wrote:

Does the Twin Cities Marathon course meet the within 30% start-finish separation rule? I recall it was ~ 8 miles between the start-finish for this race, so it seems like it would be close. Unless I do not understand the rule correctly.

TCM is 29.2% separation, so it does make it - but barely.

In contrast NYCM is 47%, and Boston is 91%.

Avocados Number wrote:

Well, why don't you stop by Bill Rodgers's place and ask him what he thinks? (Bill, by the way, ran about 90 seconds faster at Boston than he ever did on a record-quality course.)

Probably because, like you, I am not on a basis with Bill Rodgers that I can stop by his place. Also like you I have near head him say that he thinks Boston is an aided course. I have read an interview with him in which he mentioned how it would have been nice to have have raced on a course like London or Chicago in his prime to see how fast he might have run. Can't think of why he would say that unless he were more inclined to think it was faster but that's neither here nor there.

Regardless, trying to give me an example of people who have run their fastest at Boston isn't really helping your argument much. Sure in a year like 94 you are going to get some great times. On a cool day with no wind at all, however you are still going to get a slower time at Boston than you would get at a Chicago.

The simple fact remains that even with this "aided" course and the wealth of talent that has come back here over the years, you haven't seen a world record at Boston since...God I don't even know when now. The 40's? The 50s? There have been dozens of sub 2:07 marathons run throughout the world and yet not one of them happened at Boston, not even in the "insanely" aided year of 1994.

A good friend of mine actually DOES run with Bill Rodgers on a regular basis. Maybe I'll ask her to ask him and see what he thinks. I like my chances.

Warrior Mentality wrote:

I've posted five or six times with the same screen name.

Ray, did you get the handouts prior to the meeting? What's crazy in this instance is that according to other Oedipal-afflicted letsrun posters, there were Committee members that had no idea this change would be discussed.

As I said in an earlier post, I wasn't at the meeting. Only the second one I've missed in 20 years. No way I could get that much time off from work to go to Hawaii at that expense.

SB76 wrote:

I mean you can put 500 people in a marathon and manage it easily. Yet you put more people on the track which is more difficult. I don't get it?

No, you clearly don't get it.

JimG wrote:

t.shea wrote:

Does the Twin Cities Marathon course meet the within 30% start-finish separation rule? I recall it was ~ 8 miles between the start-finish for this race, so it seems like it would be close. Unless I do not understand the rule correctly.

TCM is 29.2% separation, so it does make it - but barely.

In contrast NYCM is 47%, and Boston is 91%.

The funny thing with the 30% rule is that the IAAF has a more liberal rule for 2008 Olympics then "30% start-finish separation rule". Grandma's (Duluth) has to be over 30% start-finish sepation rule but is listed on the site as a qualifing marathon:

If IAAF keeps the same list for 2012 but USATF changes to "30% start-finish separation rule" then a US runner could obtain the Olympic "A" Standard with a sub-2:15 at Grandma's but not have the Olymmpic Trial Standard because the course "is not legit". That would be a bummer to leave runners who have the Oly Games "A" Standard out of the US Oly Trials. A little thinking should happen before they announce these things.

Many of you seem to be reading something into the report that isn't there. It says that most of the courses will meet the record standard criteria, though some will not. I take that to mean that they threw out the circus courses like St. George and then parsed a list that, as it turns out, matches up with record standard criteria for the most part but not entirely. I don't know what connection there is between CIM and the PAUSATF long road racing series so I can't really comment on that.

SB76 wrote:

The problem is other good courses are knocked out too. LA, New York, Napa, CIM, and Grandmas all do not meet the 30% rule. To be fair they should stick to the rules but the USATF is never really fair are they.

And thinking of CIM. If the USATF says their course does not count will they continue to sponsor the PAUSATF long road racing series? I mean they want them to pony up money but say thier race doesn't count? I mean this is another race where their aren't blazing times...

EricMBlake wrote:

The funny thing with the 30% rule is that the IAAF has a more liberal rule for 2008 Olympics then "30% start-finish separation rule". Grandma's (Duluth) has to be over 30% start-finish sepation rule but is listed on the site as a qualifing marathon:

http://www.iaaf.org/documents/pdf/standards/OLY08/2007%20Marathon%20qualifying%20events%20Osaka%20Beijing.pdf

If IAAF keeps the same list for 2012 but USATF changes to "30% start-finish separation rule" then a US runner could obtain the Olympic "A" Standard with a sub-2:15 at Grandma's but not have the Olymmpic Trial Standard because the course "is not legit". That would be a bummer to leave runners who have the Oly Games "A" Standard out of the US Oly Trials. A little thinking should happen before they announce these things.

Again, I'm not seeing where you found in the report that there is a hard-and-fast "separation rule" that necessarily and automatically rules out any particular course.

Stop arguing over what will never matter. This will all be changed at the next years meetings. Latimer will no longer be in office and the good guys will change things. I guarantee it.