Changed Marathon Trials numbers

realistic wrote:

Bull. If you are a 2:16 to 2:18 guy you have zero chance of doing anything besides running 2:16-2:18 unless you at some point put it on the line.

the only people hurt by this decision are the people who have absolutely zero chance of medaling in the olympics for which the trials will be run.

Exactly! Which is why we need to set the standard no slower than 2:10. If you're a 2:12 guy, you don't stand a chance of ever being anything other than a 2:12 guy unless at some point you put it on the line. I mean, if you aren't willing to take a chance and go out in 1:04:30, what good are you? You certainly don't belong in an Olympic race with the Kenyans and Ethiopians.

hey look! it's the ever convenient slippery slope, the last refuge of the desperate.

a 2:12 guy has a reasonable chance of putting down a 2:10 on the day. a 2:22 guy has ZERO chance. the fact remains that the only people hurt by this in 2012 are the people with zero chance of doing ANYTHING in either the trials or the games in 2012

Wonder is anyone at USATF took a look at any of the above statistics before they came up with the new standards or if they just pulled them out of their collective arses? I'm guessing the latter.

In 4 years we could have a lot of guys under 2:19....or we could have very few. You never know what's going to happen. We could have another 2000 all over again.

Alan

realistic wrote:

a 2:12 guy has a reasonable chance of putting down a 2:10 on the day. a 2:22 guy has ZERO chance.

Ok, fine, it you want to be a pansy about it I'll cut you a little slack and say the standard should be 2:12 not 2:10. Heck, we can even make it 2:14 for the young'ns out there. 2:19 is a joke though. There's no reason to have a bunch of guys in the race when anyone who hasn't run 2:12 is just filling out the field. We gotta raise the bar. I'm telling you. Set it at 2:08:00 and you'll see some guys step it up. Might even see an American medal sweep at the Games. The key to improvement is whatever you have to goal up to.

One of them tough guys wrote:

realistic wrote:

a 2:12 guy has a reasonable chance of putting down a 2:10 on the day. a 2:22 guy has ZERO chance.

Ok, fine, it you want to be a pansy about it I'll cut you a little slack and say the standard should be 2:12 not 2:10. Heck, we can even make it 2:14 for the young'ns out there. 2:19 is a joke though. There's no reason to have a bunch of guys in the race when anyone who hasn't run 2:12 is just filling out the field. We gotta raise the bar. I'm telling you. Set it at 2:08:00 and you'll see some guys step it up. Might even see an American medal sweep at the Games. The key to improvement is whatever you have to goal up to.

Lets set it at 1:59. Damn we will be good then.

hatemetoday wrote:

Lets set it at 1:59. Damn we will be good then.

Now we're talking. Quell the weak!

One of them tough guys wrote:

Ok, fine, it you want to be a pansy about it I'll cut you a little slack and say the standard should be 2:12 not 2:10. Heck, we can even make it 2:14 for the young'ns out there. 2:19 is a joke though. There's no reason to have a bunch of guys in the race when anyone who hasn't run 2:12 is just filling out the field. We gotta raise the bar. I'm telling you. Set it at 2:08:00 and you'll see some guys step it up. Might even see an American medal sweep at the Games. The key to improvement is whatever you have to goal up to.

You're trying real hard with the parody-the-other-side thing but really its been done before. its the thing you do when you have no argument.

Set it to 2:08:00 and you'll have no team and no trials race. 2:19, however, HAS been the standard before and somehow the nation survived and nobody who could have done anything on the world stage was left out. Imagine that.

Nobody is left out by 2:19 who will make any difference whatsoever. Those who support the move are not generally asking to have it move faster than 2:19, no matter how many ridiculous things you post. And since they need to run significantly faster to meet the OLYMPIC standard, the 2:19 is still a gift.

realistic wrote:

Nobody is left out by 2:19 who will make any difference whatsoever.

So Brian Sell and Trent Briney didn't make a difference in '04, right? You do realize they wouldn't have made it with the new standards don't you? You can say all you want that if the standards had been different then they would have run them, but the simple fact is you don't know that for sure. All we know is both qualified with times over 2:19 and then impacted the race. I'm sure there are other examples over the years as well. Heck, based on his front running until dropping out with injury, I think Josh Cox impacted this year's race and he wouldn't have been there with the new standards. He also had circumstances that would have made running a faster standard to get in very difficult.

How about the post stating 14 of this year's top 30 wouldn't have been in the race with the new standards. I can't help but think that many in the top-30 impacts the race. Again, you don't know how many of those guys would have still qualified had the standards been different. Many of them may have been in better shape and had higher goals when they ran their qualifiers but had bad weather, off-days, etc. so 2:19+ was what they ran that day.

Finally, regardless of whether or not the 2:19-2:22 guys impact the race, as others have stated they increase exposure for the sport, and that can only be a good thing. The old system wasn't broken and didn't need fixing. This decision is very tough, if not impossible, to defend. Of course USATF doesn't ever attempt to defend anything. I can only hope they might change their minds and reverse what was done, although I doubt that will happen.

While I don't like the 2:19 standard I feel like just saying no, no, no, is not a constructive contribution. I do recognize that lowering the standard will help guys push themselves to make the jump.

Have an A standard, say 2:18 that guarantees your spot on the line, and then make the B standard 2:25, BUT cap the entries at 100 (or whatever arbitrary number they want). This allows you to set your budget up ahead of time.

This would still dangle the carrot in front of the 2:25-2:30 and allow those that went sub 2:25 to say that they qualifited for the trials (although they likely won't run it).

At the same time the motivation to run as fast as possible is there. You won't likely won't see the mass of guys between 2:20 and 2:22 and you will encourage some real incentive to race other guys at qualifying marathons. That way if you really want to run the trials you won't be shooting for 2:25 you will be shooting for 2:20, or 2:18 to guarantee your spot.

Could this type of qualifying be feasible? What are the downsides?

Brian Sell and Trent Briney would have gone and qualified on legitimate courses, as would anyone with an actual chance of making a difference. You think those guys couldn't throw down a sub 2:19 at a place like Chicago?

The sport is not suffering from lack of exposure, it is suffering from a lack of fast runners. I can take the slippery slope the other way and say that relaxing the standard to 3 hours would also increase exposure for the sport. A lot of good it would do us.

The trals are not there to increase exposure for running. They are there to select the Olympic team.

The very old system, back when the standard was faster, wasn't broken either.

SB76 wrote:

At the olympics there is no special drink table, the have sealed water bottles the have to open themselves. Do the same thing!

I think you are dead wrong on this one - they do have sealed h2o bottles but everyone has personal fluids as well.

But I agree w/ the rest of your points - the difference between 65 (the "goal" that USATF wants to achieve w/ the new standard) & 131 runners is pretty minimal, logistically.

realistic wrote:

Brian Sell and Trent Briney would have gone and qualified on legitimate courses, as would anyone with an actual chance of making a difference. You think those guys couldn't throw down a sub 2:19 at a place like Chicago?

You might want to check your facts before you post. Both those guys qualified, in fact, in Chicago. Now I'll grant you that Sell ran 2:19:58 and was coming off running at the World Half Marathon Championships, so he may have been able to make it. Briney, however, ran 2:21:10 in Chicago, so I'm not so sure he could have taken over 2 minutes off that time. Faster goals do not necessarily equal faster times. There are many more variables to consider.

I want to ask you this. How is this good for the sport? Lots of people have offered many ways why it is bad. How does it have a positive impact and why was it needed? It certainly isn't going to cause more people to be a threat to make the Olympic team, and at 77 finishers in 2000, 85 in 2004, and 104 most recently, I don't think we needed to limit the size of the field for logistical purposes.

I would personally favor at 2:25 B-standard. Just think about how many sub-32 minute 10k collegiate runners would jump right into the marathon after college due to the very realistic goal of qualifying for the Olympic Trials. A small minority of these guys, with age and experience, would eventually compete for spots on the team.

It's easy to point to Sell/Briney success stories. It's not as easy to point to the guys who could have had the same success, but didn't have the carrot of the OT at the end of their collegiate careers.

Not as realistic as you think wrote:

You might want to check your facts before you post. Both those guys qualified, in fact, in Chicago. Now I'll grant you that Sell ran 2:19:58 and was coming off running at the World Half Marathon Championships,

...and so had his "A" standard and did not NEED to run faster. Briney finished 75th at the trials in 2:26 and made no difference. What is the problem?

I want to ask you this. How is this good for the sport? Lots of people have offered many ways why it is bad. How does it have a positive impact and why was it needed? It certainly isn't going to cause more people to be a threat to make the Olympic team, and at 77 finishers in 2000, 85 in 2004, and 104 most recently, I don't think we needed to limit the size of the field for logistical purposes.

Personally I didn't have too much trouble with the old standard. I don't see a NEED for this but I certainly would not lose any sleep over it. They are using a standard that has already been used before and is still minutes slower then the olympic qualifying time.

I've been gone for a couple of days (which some here are surely grateful for), but I see that people are still arguing about whether the 2:22 standard is in the U.S. Constitution somewhere. (I don't think it is, but I haven't read the Constitution in the past several weeks. Maybe it's one of those unenumerated rights suggested in the Ninth Amendment.)

One alternative that I don't recall being mentioned (although it may have been), is the provisional "B" standard that is used in track. Keep the automatic qualifying standard at 2:19 (and 1:05 and 28:30 for the half marathon and 10,000 meters), but if there are not enough qualifiers at that level to meet a certain target number (I might suggest 100), then allow in the next fastest runners (purely by gun/clock time) until you hit the target number of qualifiers. The provisional "B" standard could be 2:21 or even 2:22. No one above the provisional standard would be considered, even if the number of "A" and "B" qualifiers is less than the target number (which is unlikely if the target is 100). Also, there would be no provisional "B" standard for half-marathon and 10,000 times.

Such an alternative provides a real incentive to shoot for the higher "A" standard (unlike, in my view, the pay-your-own-way "B" standard of 1996-2007), but also avoids the objection (overblown, in my view) that you could end up with just a handful of runners who qualify under the "A" standard. My guess is that you would end up getting close to 100 runners qualifying under the "A" standard, but this provides more flexibility if that turns out not to be the case).

I would probably adhere to the IAAF record-quality standard for qualifying courses, and let other races (including Boston) fend for themselves. Boston is a great race with a great tradition, but the perceived need to accommodate Boston under any rule has degraded course standards in the U.S.

realistic wrote:

Briney finished 75th at the trials in 2:26 and made no difference. What is the problem?

Again, check your facts. Briney ran 2:21:10 in Chicago and then went on to finish 4th at the Trials in 2:12. I was talking about 2004, not this year.

You're not alone. Nobody can offer a reason why this was needed or is a good thing for the sport. That is why I think it should not have been done. I also think that's why the decision was made in the manner it was, and that reflects very poorly on USATF. Is it the end of the sport as we know it? Certainly not. Does it likely do more harm than good? Yes.

I don't understand the arguement that lowering the qualifying time to make the olympic trials will drive all the 2:20-2:25 guys out of the sport. There is no monetary support for these guys either way. Under the old standard just making it to the olympic trials guaranteed you nothing, now...nothing's changed. If you aren't making it financially already the change has no additional bearing.It is one race every four years, hardly something to base your whole program around (unless you're running sub 2:15).

mjlaye wrote:

Have an A standard, say 2:18 that guarantees your spot on the line, and then make the B standard 2:25, BUT cap the entries at 100 (or whatever arbitrary number they want). This allows you to set your budget up ahead of time.

Wow! You beat me to it!

I think that a provisional "B" standard of 2:25, though, is way too soft and almost certainly unnecessary in any event, since the race should fill up before we get to 2:22 runners. For purposes of OT qualifying standards, there should be no need even to keep track of times over 2:22.