NY Times Draws the Line at 4.5 Hour Marathon Finishers

Some of you guys amuse me.

You complain about the fat Americans.

A few get out and train for and run a marathon to accomplish something and get a little more fit and you complain about that. You are a frustrated bunch.

Think about this. Say you want to climb Mt Everest for the achievement. You get the gear, do some training and then go climb it. You should be proud, right? Then the one's who climbed it first start dissin you because of the way you did it or how you dressed or whatever. All you were thinking about was climbing Mt Everest. That's exactly how it is for a lot of people who want to complete a marathon. Time has nothing to do with it. Just because they are different from you doesn't make them idiots.

I agree with you. But don't bother trying to get your point across to the arrogant idiots on this board. Many people here do agree with you, however, but they'll troll the thread anyways and go against what you say.

Dude don't you realize that nobody gives a flying f***!!!

Compton_Mofo wrote:

Dude don't you realize that nobody gives a flying f***!!!

Got it, thank you for the clarification.

Right idea yet horribly myopic application. Potential customers will chiefly come via the media, not merely the participants. You knew that, right?

AW wrote:

In every marathon, the faster runners can run from the front and never be inconvenienced by the slower people in the rear.

How about the inconvenience of having to register 3+ months before the race because slow runners who will run/walk the course regardless of how well their training goes are willing to do so in huge numbers?

Three hour cut-off. If you can't do that, you aren't a runner and a marathoner. Jogger is the word then. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

As they say in Texas: "bless your heart, you are so slow; you can't help that but you could at least stay out of marathons."

amused. wrote:

Think about this. Say you want to climb Mt Everest for the achievement. You get the gear, do some training and then go climb it. You should be proud, right? Then the one's who climbed it first start dissin you because of the way you did it or how you dressed or whatever. All you were thinking about was climbing Mt Everest. That's exactly how it is for a lot of people who want to complete a marathon. Time has nothing to do with it. Just because they are different from you doesn't make them idiots.

The proper comparison would be I want to climb Mt. Everest then I train by walking up the hill in my local park. Once a week I go for a really long walk and then I use the stair climber in my gym to crosstrain. Then some sherpa drags me up and down the mountain. That would make me an idiot and I should be subject to scorn and mockery.

We're all just one big happy family of runners today. Its no skin off my nose if someone runs a 6 or 7 hour marathon. Good for them! I ran my first marathon in 1960 when things were quite a bit different from today. Back then, the cutoff was 4 hours at which time the timekeepers and everybody else went home and you got a NTT ("no time taken"). Just about everybody finished within 4 hours or dropped out. It was a lot more competitive then. Now, for about 1/2 the field, its more of a social event than an actual competition. Take a look at the comments on marathonguide.com for example where the biggest complaints are about lack of food, entertainment and scenery on the courses. So, live and let live. Race Directors will figure out which strategy works best for them in terms of field size. The same goes for the newspapers.

I think they should just publish the top 10 finishers in the mens' and womens' races. Nobody cares after that. If they want to be generous they could publish the top 3 in each age group as well.

Reminds me of a good quote from someone I consider elite - "elite runners are a myth".

That's almost elite for women. It would be equivalent to cutting men off at 2:30, or about 12-13 minutes higher than the OTQ time. Would you make your own cut?I know people who train 40-50mpw and can't get under 4:30. They do speedwork, long runs, have been doing it for years. Some are old, some are women, but some just have absolutely no talent for running. They are much more runners than some college kid (like you yahoos) goofing off at 20-30 mpw and comes in at 2:50.Is a 2:30 a better runner yes. Great! I enjoy following the elites, its a great sport. But so what? You loosers who are disdaining everyone else's effort draw the line just behind whatever your time is. What will happen in few years when you get fatter and slower? You will just give up running and turn into a slob? Or will you adjust your criteria again?Triathlon has it right. I think the techiness of triathlon is ridiculous and its incredibly expensive to do. Biking is boring, as is swimming. (I do like following the sport as spectator). But they have one thing right: they are all running one race from beginning to end and they don't have any of you elitist (not elite) types beating on the slower people. There was just as much cheering by those watching a woman (I think she was a cancer survivor, but I have trouble keeping track of the human interest stuff) trying to come in under the 2:30 swim cut at the ironman as it was for the professionals. (I don't think she made it incidentally)

Night Runner wrote:

Three hour cut-off. If you can't do that, you aren't a runner and a marathoner. Jogger is the word then. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

As they say in Texas: "bless your heart, you are so slow; you can't help that but you could at least stay out of marathons."

hardset nipples wrote:

Right idea yet horribly myopic application. Potential customers will chiefly come via the media, not merely the participants. You knew that, right?

Myopia indeed. Are you suggesting that ING would get more media exposure if it were a race limited to a handful of truly fast runners that Joe Sixpack could give a damn about without also being an event that the average smuck can participate in?

No, fool.

A lot of these people are RUNNING for that whole time. So, I ask you to RUN whatever pace you want for that amount of time and see how you feel. Oh and do the training runs that are over 3 hours as well.

niarun wrote:

I know people who train 40-50mpw and can't get under 4:30. They do speedwork, long runs, have been doing it for years. Some are old, some are women, but some just have absolutely no talent for running. They are much more runners than some college kid (like you yahoos) goofing off at 20-30 mpw and comes in at 2:50.

.01/10

Citizen Runner and hardset nipples are both making good points -- and they're not contradictory, so I don't really get the hostility. Marathon sponsors make money both from the huge amount of people running the race whom they are reaching as well as the huge amount of spectators who are watching those people. Most people don't want to watch no-name Kenyans sprint by at a speed they can't even fathom, and that's why professional track events are relatively so poorly attended. So why would sponsors want to pay for that?

Now if only track could somehow get the popularity of other professional sports, we wouldn't need wealthy 5-hour marathoners to help fund our races.. but of course, they wouldn't be turned away ever..

Maybe they don't want to tie up one of the largest cities in the world for more than a few hours?

They have the right to run their race however they see fit. It's their race not ours. You want to run it then play by the rules. It's as simple as that.

Look at Fukuoka. They dropped the standard down to 2:43 this year to enter. They flag you down and take you out of the race if you fall behind. No exceptions and no tolerance. No age categories. Nobody complains about that race because they are not wishy washy with their approach. Like it or leave it that's how it is.

If New York says they don't want runners that can't run faster than 4:30 then find a way to do it or step aside.

Here is where it gets complicated. As soon as they let some slow celebrity runner run over 4:30 then they tarnished their objective.

I do not have time for strawmen.

Sponsors DO pay for that, the highest level track meets attract big-name sponsorship. Large marathons with basically no big time elites (Marine Corps, Philadelphia, Portland, St. George, Austin, Dallas, Detroit, Cincinnati, etc.) don't. This is no coincidence. There are indeed large marathons lacking big time elites that are put on as marketing tools for sponsors (Disney, Nike Women's) yet they are the exception to the rule, though maybe they are a sign of sea change.

Another strawman, there is no proof that "wealthy 5-hour marathoners" do anything to benefit the status of pro track. Zip. Zero. Nada.