JK, Hodge, Derderian, Malmo et al: What do you guys think of today's Boston performances?

1975 gave us a day at Boston like they had this year. I was there that year. The wind moved us faster. You didn't feel it or anything. You just got to places a bit faster than you were used to.

Tom, why doesn't BAA get into the game? They have resources, history, a major sponsor... couldn't they put together a package that would attract developing elites?

Wow! Sorry to change the topic, but are we looking at nearly 50 Americans under 2:20? Nearly 80? Either way, just Wow!

Top 50 had 46 Americans, 2 from Venezuela, 1 from Canada, and 1 from Japan. No Africans.

Tom, why doesn't BAA get into the game? They have resources, history, a major sponsor... couldn't they put together a package that would attract developing elites?[/quote]

Yes, yes, yes. Why do they not put some real resources $$$ into their own running club and develop the next American challenger for victory at BOSTON?

Here's a take on all the debate over whether it's a record or not:

I work in a school, people unfamiliar with running ask me about the debate. I explain and their response is always that it's stupid and it should be a world record.

I guess that's just the average person's response. The race has brought attention to the sport. The guys who have to make too many freaking rules are making that attention negative.

Hey, one innocent 9th grader asked me if the wind was in their faces would they subtract time?

keep it simple wrote:

It is silly to compare times from Boston to other races and NYC to other races, because they don't have rabbits that will maintain an even pace for the first half or first 30k...

Didn't this race have a pretty fair rabbit that did just that? He just happened to stick around and finish in 2:04:58

This one kind of, but in the other races like London, Berlin, Chicago, there are a set of rabbits hired with a pre-specified pace. Since the rabbits aren't going to fluctuate pace that much - this sets up a greater chance of a fast race in the end, since it is more like a track race. Boston and NYC (the last 10 yrs or so) don't have rabbits, so the times are much more variable - the pace can be slow the first part like a tactical 1500 and then burn up in the last half - or be a mixture of surges. Either way, because the pace isn't as even, makes it less likely for a fast time.

Another consideration that is not taken into account are the fields aren't the same - the last decade or so, London and Chicago usually picked up a lot of the top runners, whereas Boston maybe picked up a handful. (For example, Geb, Khannouchi, Lel, Wanjiru, Gharib, etc. have never run Boston) Only recently have the fields in Boston really been on par with the other big races.

Basically analyzes like Malmo's above and the NYC comparison that is often cut and paste are really not giving an accurate head to head comparison so any conclusions drawn from them on time differences should be dismissed.

I think and have advocated this point with BAA officials, Hansons, that the public would get behind teams if they could understand them in the way they are used to understanding teams by name and city, Boston Athletic Association, Greater Boston Track Club are names that work because they work in the public brain like Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees.

But the clubs mentioned earlier:

-OTC elite

- Brooks Hansons

-Adidas Boulder Running Co

-McMillanElite

-In the Arena

Have names that are not simple to understand. Oregon Elite,

Michigan Hansons, Boulder Running would work because people can become automatically fans of their geographic place. Where are McMillan, Arena? There is something in a name.

The results should, like for most of the history of the Boston Marathon (see my book) list the runner's name and his club not town of residence. My GBTC runners and the BAA runners are not representing the towns where they happened to find apartments, but that is what the results list. You can't glance at the results and get any sense of the club score so had can you think about clubs.

Once you, the public, thinks about clubs, they have some power to attract sponsors, members, and invitations as TEAMS to races. They publicity can follow. They public and insiders like us and argue about the teams, their coaches, their prospects, training methods, possible recruits.

At Boston the BAA won both team prizes. Then came Air Force—a name you can understand. They New York Athletic Club, Melbourne Midday Milers, Knoxville, GBTC, then it gets weird. Dick Pond? Crow Athletics?? Team RUN???

But you cannot quickly see who represented which team in the results—The top BAA guy, Terry Shea, is listed at Cambridge. He wore the club shirt. So what that he lives in Cambridge? The players for the Red Sox do not represent the towns where they live.

These are small changes. Computer results of road races could easily put club affiliation first. Here's the link to Boston team results:

http://raceday.baa.org/team.html

There is no prize money. There should be prize money and appearance money for clubs eventually to amounts that would allow clubs to develop runners and programs. Entry fees alone for a club reach $400. How can it possibly be professional if you have to pay more than you could win?

Tom

Sorry I mistyped. Have names that are simple to understand.

The last three teams you mentioned are non-professional clubs. Dick Pond Fast Track, for instance, is a Chicago-area team (sponsored by Dick Pond Athletics, a local running store chain). Teams like this primarily compete against other local teams, where their name is very recognizable.

What do you suggest that local, amateur teams do when they enter races like Boston?

runn wrote:

...

Hey, one innocent 9th grader asked me if the wind was in their faces would they subtract time?

No, they would not subtract time. And nobody is talking about adding time.

What folks are talking about is what were these performances the equivalent of in non-wind-aided conditions. And if the wind was in their faces, Yes people would be talking about what the performances were equivalent to in non-wind-handicapped conditions.

Sorry for all you folks complaining about the analysis of how much the wind was worth. But the reality is that in this sport there are only two things that matter, winning (which is immediately observable) and time. So, understanding the significance of certain times just happens to be critical to understanding the sport regardless of whether or not it turns you (or the average Joe) off.

Tommy D,

The BAA have millions available to put into their running club but it seems they have decided to develop more races as opposed to more potential champions.

http://tonireavis.com/2011/04/14/new-direction-outlined-for-boston-athletic-association/

“We asked ourselves, ‘shouldn’t this be a more influential enterprise than it is?” said 63 year-old Grilk, himself a 2:49 marathoner from his days with the Greater Boston Track Club. “And the answer was yes. We have something like $10 million in the bank at last reported filing. We spent years building up this rainy day fund in case we needed to put on the marathon without sponsorship. Well, now there’s an opportunity now to do lots of things for lots of people. I tell our staff we need to work on three things: collaboration, innovation, and discipline."

All the clubs you metioned are great and worthy of support but if the BAA don't want to focus on developing runners with lofty goals to win their own darn race with all the resources that they have... this I don't comprehend.

Many years ago I interviewed for the coaching job at the BAA, a paid position.

I was asked by one of the interviewers what would my goals be for the club.

I told them my number one goal would be to have a BAA runner win Boston.

The interviewer told me that was "unrealistic"

I said of course it is/is not, that is the essence of high athletic achievement. Setting lofty goals.

Needless to say they hired another candidate.

What a stupid debate. A strong wind can easily be 10 seconds/mile of aid at marathon paces. The fast Boston times are because of the tailwind, plain and simple.

I have done more tempos in Omaha with tailwind than I care to recount - it is so windy here so often that I sometimes do tempos by getting droppedoff upwind on one of the linear trails or doing a "run to the barn" in the second half of an out/back. I will quite often run 10 seconds/mile faster with tailwind than I could do the same distance on a calm day on the track.

I do tons of out/back easy runs with headwind out and tailwind back and coming back 30 sec/mile at the same effort would not be uncommon in a 30mph wind.

And Boston, despite its net downhill, isn't as easy as a perfectly flat course. You don't pick up as much going down a hill as you lose climbing one.

Do any of you guys ride a bike? I did a 30 mile hard ride of laps around a 6 mile lake loop a few weeks ago in a 30 mph wind. My tailwind miles were like 28mph (could have been faster, but ran out of gears) and my headwind ones painful struggle to hold 15mph. I know the faster speeds on a bike exaggerate the effect, but it is a huge effect.

keep it simple wrote:

Basically analyzes like Malmo's above and the NYC comparison that is often cut and paste are really not giving an accurate head to head comparison so any conclusions drawn from them on time differences should be dismissed.

Wrong, kiddo. My analysis only compared runners who had actually run on New York AND other courses like Boston, and only compared their own PRs to their best times on each course. I compared apples to apples and came to the same conclusion of time bias per course that the authors of that Science of Sport articles did when using a slightly different data set.

You're dismissed from class now.

Brian wrote:

What a stupid debate. A strong wind can easily be 10 seconds/mile of aid at marathon paces. The fast Boston times are because of the tailwind, plain and simple.

The stupidity of the debate says more about the human mind than it does about the topic. What amazes me more than the stupidity is the vehemence with which those who want to ignore the obvious effect of the wind, and their insistence that the infidels are 'haters', 'bitter', and 'jealous'.

Interesting to me that the tactic used is to repeat a falsehood over and over in hopes that it will become fact. I've seen a couple of posters go from thread to thread proudly proclaiming "It's a world record and nothing you say can change that." Which of course it's not a world record.

Stupid is one word to describe the debate, 'bizarre' is a better word.

JK said 3-4 minutes (compared to the normal Boston course,not a flat pr course) due to the wind before the race.

The sports scientist blog said 3-4 minutes after the race.

This year's Boston field I felt on the men's side was stronger than in year's past. The relatively weak fields in Boston over the last decade may make have made the Boston course appear to be slower than it was and thus overestimate the effect of the wind.

3-4 minutes wind doesn't mean that Mutai's run is equal to 206-207 on a flat course. It means it's worth that on a normal Boston course.

Course difficulty -add 2 min

Wind aided - Subtracts 3 min

1 min difference?

Hall 2:05:58 at chicago?

Hodgie, that's a sad story indeed... so maybe BAA has set their sights on something different. I guess that's their business. What about New Balance Boston? They seem to have a stronger elite group right now than the other local clubs - at least on the track and in XC. And the new leadership at NB is apparently unafraid to throw around the cash right now - they seem like they might be willing to go all in...What would it take to get them to put together a stronger marathon group...