Just Average wrote:
YMMV wrote:
https://www.arrs.run/TB_Mara.htm+8.0 +California Int'l (Sacramento CA/USA
+82.8 +New York City (NY/USA)
So 90s difference for "elite runners". Double that if you like for ~3:00.
The OP didn't mention if they wore VFs either race. Those shoes probably would help more for CIM.
Ran in the same exact pair for both NYC and CIM.
Same pair of VFs. But I see what you mean. The downhills probably help more if you're wearing VF.
CIM is USATF certified. That is the ‘fact’. So the title of this thread is inaccurate since USATF doesn’t label it a ‘joke’. You could say it’s a “joke” in reference to it being record eligible but that’s about it. Anybody can run CIM. Everyone qualifies using the same rules. No one who didn’t run a qualifying time *deserves* to qualify over someone who did run a qualifying time. Plain and simple. The individual is responsible for understanding the qualifying procedures and giving themselves the best opportunity to satisfy the qualifying requirements. Some individuals who didn’t qualify may be able to beat those who did... oh well, maybe those ‘faster’ individuals should be smarter about the races they choose to run.
If you aren’t trying to hit a qualifying time, then time doesn’t really matter. Everyone in the race runs the same course in the same conditions. It is a race. If you run faster than someone, you beat them (excluding small differences in chip/gun time). The course doesn’t matter. Be competitive and actually try to beat people.
Quit flattering yourself man. Hours? I wake up, run, get my kids ready for school and then have about 30 minutes before I have to head to work, which is all that it took. How many guys ran both CIM and NY in the time you did?
I completely engaged your ideas. You set a 35ish minute PR at NY not running the course in a fashion to maximize your potential. And NY has a ton of waiting around time and is insanely crowded, which isn't conducive to fast running. If you were a consistent 3:05 guy and then dropped a 2:55, that'd help your point.
Runner who set big PRs typically have big time swings and aren't as stable. It is, what it is. Once your times stabilize a little bit more, then you'll have a better idea of what courses are truly like.
SouthernFriedRealist wrote:
Quit flattering yourself man. Hours? I wake up, run, get my kids ready for school and then have about 30 minutes before I have to head to work, which is all that it took. How many guys ran both CIM and NY in the time you did?
I completely engaged your ideas. You set a 35ish minute PR at NY not running the course in a fashion to maximize your potential. And NY has a ton of waiting around time and is insanely crowded, which isn't conducive to fast running. If you were a consistent 3:05 guy and then dropped a 2:55, that'd help your point.
Runner who set big PRs typically have big time swings and aren't as stable. It is, what it is. Once your times stabilize a little bit more, then you'll have a better idea of what courses are truly like.
LOL you "only" spent 30 minutes cyber-stalking me. That makes it much better! And I love how you're also now an expert on my potential and NYC Marathon race strategy.
Please, unless you're going to leave your wife and kids for me your time is probably better spent discussing why CIM is or is not a joke of a course instead of telling me how you think I look in my race photos.
c7runner7 wrote:
CIM is USATF certified. That is the ‘fact’. So the title of this thread is inaccurate since USATF doesn’t label it a ‘joke’. You could say it’s a “joke” in reference to it being record eligible but that’s about it. Anybody can run CIM. Everyone qualifies using the same rules. No one who didn’t run a qualifying time *deserves* to qualify over someone who did run a qualifying time. Plain and simple. The individual is responsible for understanding the qualifying procedures and giving themselves the best opportunity to satisfy the qualifying requirements. Some individuals who didn’t qualify may be able to beat those who did... oh well, maybe those ‘faster’ individuals should be smarter about the races they choose to run.
If you aren’t trying to hit a qualifying time, then time doesn’t really matter. Everyone in the race runs the same course in the same conditions. It is a race. If you run faster than someone, you beat them (excluding small differences in chip/gun time). The course doesn’t matter. Be competitive and actually try to beat people.
Well, a joke is an opinion, you can be USATF certified and it's allowed for someone to have the opinion the course is a joke.
You're right that anyone can run it, and b/c it's point-to-point the records there don't count anyway. But even knowing its reputation I could not believe how easy the course seemed to me personally.
You're also right that it's mainly for hitting qualifying times. Which is true, fair, and fine. But should it really be allowed? I don't know, I'm not familiar with how the USATF certifies courses but from my anecdotal experience it seems like it's faster than a marathon course ought to be.
Just Average wrote:
Get a grip wrote:
People have already discussed this topic extensively. You decided to make a new thread about it because you think the data you are bringing (that one runner, you, ran 3:05 NYC then 2:55 CIM 5 weeks later) is so significant. But it's not.
Right-- training has also been discussed on this board many times, why bother discussing that either, huh?
Sorry you are so intellectually exhausted with the topic of the CIM course but maybe instead of whining you could just...not care and not post in the thread?
How am I not contributing to the discussion? You added some evidence for us to review. I'm telling you it's worthless. I'm not intellectually exhausted just because you don't like what I'm saying. Neither am I whining just because you don't like what I'm saying. Realize that your one singular experience does not significantly affect the evaluation of CIM's course.
It's always funny when people try to discount CIM as some super-fast "cheater" course because they look at a chart and see it's a "net downhill".
Boston is a "net downhill", with an even greater overall drop than CIM, does anyone say that Boston is a super fast course?
It's just lazy thinking to equate all net-downhill courses with super-fast courses. You could build a net-downhill course that starts at the top of a mountain, runs to the bottom, and then runs back up to a point 1 foot (or 100, you get the idea) lower than the start that'd be a net-downhill but nobody in their right mind would call that a "fast" course.
I thought CIM was really well organized and didn't find the course terribly easy.
Only disappointment: finish line beer garden was way too small and seemed to run out of every type of beer way too quickly.
zs58 wrote:
It's always funny when people try to discount CIM as some super-fast "cheater" course because they look at a chart and see it's a "net downhill".
Boston is a "net downhill", with an even greater overall drop than CIM, does anyone say that Boston is a super fast course?
It's just lazy thinking to equate all net-downhill courses with super-fast courses. You could build a net-downhill course that starts at the top of a mountain, runs to the bottom, and then runs back up to a point 1 foot (or 100, you get the idea) lower than the start that'd be a net-downhill but nobody in their right mind would call that a "fast" course.
Boston has 783 feet of elevation gain, CIM has 250. It's not even close.
Not sure I understand the running down a mountain analogy.
Just Average wrote:
Finally ran CIM today and took 10 minutes off my NYC time despite only 5 weeks difference.
I'd read posts here about all the rolling hills the first 20 miles and how the uphill negates the net downhill- no.
The uphills are so gentle I barely noticed. Only what, 10 turns? It's mostly a downhill straightaway.
And not to be a race snob but the only thing it has going for it is the speedy course. It's not scenic. There's no real crowd support. The aid stations are understaffed -- twice I ran by them and no volunteers had cups. Tried grabbing cups from the table: empty.
Super crowded. Way too many runners for roads that small. The self-seeding system just leads to people in the sub-3 corral running 8-9 min/miles. The expo is tiny and there's nothing going on postrace.
It's fast. Ridiculously fast. But Chicago, NY and some smaller races are way better, IMHO.
Crowded? Yeah right. I bet you're in the 3 hour window, aren't you?
Expo - who cares. Get in, get out. Find bathroom. No shopping. No socializing. No testing sh*t out. Do that any other day of the year. 5 minutes max. It should take longer to park your car than get your bib and lame t-shirt which you can leave at the starting line.
Post-race - Eat. Shower. Exit.
What else is there to do, you tourist?!
Just Average wrote:
Cim Runner wrote:
I ran the course for the first time this year as well. The net downhill argument is silly: Boston is more downhill but in my mind, a more difficult course.
I didn’t find the downhill though to be that crazy. There were probably 3 downhills that I thought were very down, but there are rollers. No, they aren’t hills, and they can’t compare to NYC or Boston. But enough to say that if you trained on dead flat land your entire cycle, you will not do well.
I’d also say just because you ran a PR doesn’t make it illegitimate. That’s a weird way to look at results. You should run faster than NYC, especially at your pace, where things can get really crowded in NYC. I’m not critiquing you for being slow like other typical LRC posters, but more that the closer you get to 3+, the worse your experience will be on any major marathon.
It’s also weird to criticize the post race experience and the crowd support. Not sure what you were expecting. CIM bills itself as a place you go to run fast, not where you go for crowd support (that’s what Boston/NYC are for).
CIM logistics are SO much better than other races that have that number of people. I loved just rolling off the bus, using the port-a-potty, and heading to the line.
If there is one critique of the whole thing, I do agree on the corrals. With how popular this race is getting for people going for fast times, you can’t let people self-seed. I know CIM is trying to keep that “small race” feel, but it’s not that anymore and they should have a time requirement corral for something like a sub 3 corral.
How many times do I have to repeat this? My argument is not *I ran a PR so it's an easy course*.
My argument is: I ran NYC 5 weeks ago, in an average time for a hobby jogger (3:05). Five weeks is not enough time to significantly improve in the 'thon so its roughly an apples-to-downhill-apples comparison and CIM is WAY faster/easier, even than a flat course like NYC.
It's nice that they let people stay on the bus but CIM can't compare to more scenic races. It's ugly and boring and overcrowded by people trying for race speeds 30-45 min outside their ability.
Not sure anyone knows what your "argument" is? Yes 3:05 is a hobby jogger time, we can agree. Yes CIM is a course that is 10 minutes faster than NYC, we can agree.
*
^ this is an asterisk for your time CIM runners.
I just checked.
Nobody ran NYC marathon this year with a time of 3:05:xx also ran CIM with a time of 2:55:xx
Just Average wrote:
Finally ran CIM today and took 10 minutes off my NYC time despite only 5 weeks difference.
I'd read posts here about all the rolling hills the first 20 miles and how the uphill negates the net downhill- no.
The uphills are so gentle I barely noticed. Only what, 10 turns? It's mostly a downhill straightaway.
And not to be a race snob but the only thing it has going for it is the speedy course. It's not scenic. There's no real crowd support. The aid stations are understaffed -- twice I ran by them and no volunteers had cups. Tried grabbing cups from the table: empty.
Super crowded. Way too many runners for roads that small. The self-seeding system just leads to people in the sub-3 corral running 8-9 min/miles. The expo is tiny and there's nothing going on postrace.
It's fast. Ridiculously fast. But Chicago, NY and some smaller races are way better, IMHO.
Thanks for the Humble Brag. So your race time was 3:45 in CIM?
Those of us who have run fast understand that courses account for a couple of minutes difference in the Marathon, excepting running up or down a mountain. Conditions are more important than the course in most cases. I ran 2min slower at CIM than Chicago, but the conditions were bad at CIM. Might have run a minute faster than Chicago without wind and rain. My Boston best was in between those two.
ooper wrote:
*
^ this is an asterisk for your time CIM runners.
lol. Post of the thread!
Just checked wrote:
I just checked.
Nobody ran NYC marathon this year with a time of 3:05:xx also ran CIM with a time of 2:55:xx
Maybe he bandited
or
the dog ate his homework
bad doggy wrote:
Just checked wrote:
I just checked.
Nobody ran NYC marathon this year with a time of 3:05:xx also ran CIM with a time of 2:55:xx
Maybe he bandited
or
the dog ate his homework
Looks like he ran 3:02:xx and 2:55:xx
Also, for someone of his age, he uses "lolol" quite often.
I decided to join the scavenger hunt as well and there was an Edward Distel who ran 2:56 and 3:06, along with a negative split at NYC. I just looked at finishers from NY in the 3:04-3:07 range at CIM.
If you look at his athlinks, he once ran NY three weeks after Chicago and ran faster. Three weeks after a marathon is pretty close, so with his five week NY to CIM window, that could have been five minutes faster at NY than Chicago. So he would say Chicago is a slow course?
fractiouskat wrote:
Wolf's Bane wrote:
CIM is for people looking for a fast time, not for people looking to share stories on instagram.
You clowns looking for 'scenery' Go take a walk around a national park. Crowd support, medals ... whatever. CIM is for racers.
This is why I hate running on some tracks, bad scenery.
Detective Pikachu wrote:
I decided to join the scavenger hunt as well and there was an Edward Distel who ran 2:56 and 3:06, along with a negative split at NYC. I just looked at finishers from NY in the 3:04-3:07 range at CIM.
If you look at his athlinks, he once ran NY three weeks after Chicago and ran faster. Three weeks after a marathon is pretty close, so with his five week NY to CIM window, that could have been five minutes faster at NY than Chicago. So he would say Chicago is a slow course?
You're better at this than I am.