2020 Boston Marathon Cancelled

1. Will the elite East Africans participate in the virtual "race"? Going to be disappointed otherwise

2. What are the chances 2021 even happens at this point?

Because in order to be continually held, the towns along the route of the Boston Marathon have to see an economic benefit from the event. Meaning increased visitors, hotel stays, restaurant orders and such. They won't get that from 100 or so elites running the event alone.

The marathon almost evaporated in the mid-1980's when it got down to 6,500 runners or so. Part of the deal with it continuing was the field had to be expanded to make it more appealing to the local entities.

I ran marathons for years and I could never get in. They kept lowering the times by 5 minutes then another 5 minutes. Last year I trained 4 and half months even up to a 100 miles a week and I had the race of my life in October and qualified by 2:27 minutes under the times they kept lowering. Now with letting 2020 runners run in 2021 I will never get a chance to run Boston.

"Boston Strong" is officially dead.

It's Boston Spineless now

Dashed hopes wrote:

I ran marathons for years and I could never get in. They kept lowering the times by 5 minutes then another 5 minutes. Last year I trained 4 and half months even up to a 100 miles a week and I had the race of my life in October and qualified by 2:27 minutes under the times they kept lowering. Now with letting 2020 runners run in 2021 I will never get a chance to run Boston.

I've never been the guy to criticize training on here but 100 mile weeks and years of marathons. I would suggest getting an experienced coach to help you more out of that effort. The fact that you didn't injure yourself with that training tells me you can run faster unless you're a large but somehow injury proof guy (assuming you're a guy). Good luck with your running!

Rhodium Nights wrote:

"Boston Strong" is officially dead.

It's Boston Spineless now

That's it. This whole thing of shutting everything down is ridiculous. I think it was 2 years ago that the flu killed over 80k people. I never saw them shut down anything.

Don't forget, the Boston Marathon is the only marathon to ever suffer a terrorist attack.

They needed to cancel and not risk spread of virus.

Look at the positive, some of us will have raced two "Boston Marathons" in 2020!

Predictions for the 2021 cutoff time? I say 8 minutes.

Jeljo wrote:

Don't forget, the Boston Marathon is the only marathon to ever suffer a terrorist attack.

They needed to cancel and not risk spread of virus.

Look at the positive, some of us will have raced two "Boston Marathons" in 2020!

What do you mean? The virtual one and what is the other one?

The point is, they still held the race even though there was a terrorist attack the year prior.

Boston Spineless.

Covid might be significantly less of a threat by September but they up and cancelled it anyway. Such a shame.

Speaking of pandemics, the Boston Marathon was still held during the Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people. Covid is absolutely nothing compared to that if we're comparing pandemics.

tycobb wrote:

Dashed hopes wrote:

I ran marathons for years and I could never get in. They kept lowering the times by 5 minutes then another 5 minutes. Last year I trained 4 and half months even up to a 100 miles a week and I had the race of my life in October and qualified by 2:27 minutes under the times they kept lowering. Now with letting 2020 runners run in 2021 I will never get a chance to run Boston.

I've never been the guy to criticize training on here but 100 mile weeks and years of marathons. I would suggest getting an experienced coach to help you more out of that effort. The fact that you didn't injure yourself with that training tells me you can run faster unless you're a large but somehow injury proof guy (assuming you're a guy). Good luck with your running!

I did pfitzinger's 2nd marathon training. by that I mean the 2nd most mileage out of the three in his book. The 100 miles was just one of the weeks (just to say I did it). I did another in the low 90s and then more in the upper eighties. As far as coach if I could find a good one that would be great but I don't think I would like the price they would give me. I would also really be pissed if I didn't do any or much better.

Virtual Race wrote:

Predictions for the 2021 cutoff time? I say 8 minutes.

We can guess but there are too many unknowns. First, the BAA said registered runners can use their 2020 time. This suggests non-registered runners who missed the cut-off can not use their 2020 time. Some of the registered runners will age up (about 20%) and gain 5 or 10 minutes. Some will no longer want or be able to participate. Assuming a typical qualifying window, there will be more people qualifying but of course this is only for the period September to February since basically everything was cancelled since March . But very few qualify in June, July, August so in reality probably 60 to 75% of normal qualifiers for 2021 already did it.

How many will avoid large crowds and not race in 2021?

Assuming a normal registration process the qualifying requirement will increase but because of fewer races not by as much as we would normally assume.

Someone several pages back ITT asked about marathons in Alaska or Hawaii, both of which have very few absolute numbers and very low per capita numbers. Not really the point of this thread, but since you asked, the two major road marathons in Anchorage have already been cancelled for this summer.

I'm a Covid-19 survivor, long hospitalization and it was about as serious as it gets without dying, it's unfortunate they had to cancel but I understand their perspective

Your age? Any underlying health issues?

Dashed hopes wrote:

I ran marathons for years and I could never get in. They kept lowering the times by 5 minutes then another 5 minutes. Last year I trained 4 and half months even up to a 100 miles a week and I had the race of my life in October and qualified by 2:27 minutes under the times they kept lowering. Now with letting 2020 runners run in 2021 I will never get a chance to run Boston.

It took me 14 marathons until I qualified. I squeaked into the race seven seconds ahead of the BQ cutoff (-1:09 under for the 2015 cutoff of -1:02). Making that time at last meant more to me than running at a cold, rainy Boston the following year.

Keep at it. Don't wear yourself out at a young age putting in so many miles. I did and now I watch from the sidelines. Stay active and running for longevity. There will be a time where the time standards will be easy for you beat by a country mile. BAA wants older folks who will drop a lot of cash at the expo after all.

hart crane wrote:

Wow, a quick glance at the Boston Marathon Instagram page shows some real whiny people.

It sucks that the race was canceled. But everything has been axed. Good lord. Complaining how "it's not fair!!!" as 100k people have died from covid is really silly.

There's a reason people think runners are mental. You're talking about people jumped over maimed bodies to get to the finish line in 2013.

american fruitloops wrote:

Seriously some crybabies need to get a grip. Worldwide pandemic. Your little running race is not an essential activity.

It's late May 2020, not March 2020. Anyone still thinking COVID-19 is a bigger threat than the anti-COVID-19 measures must be seriously retarded.

As sad as I am to say this, when the BAA wrote about the Sept date, I didn't bother to book a hotel room - I was pretty confident it wasn't going to happen. Like the rest of you, I will have to decide whether or not to run a virtual event. I probably will and I will cross my fingers that the 2021 marathon goes ahead as I have my doubts about that as well. I have two results from 2019 that are 17 and 18 minutes better than my cut-off so I am not worried about getting in whenever the BM is held. Yeah, this absolutely sucks.

Don't give up, grow old.

I spent my late 20's and early 30's trying to qualify and got within a couple minutes (with a 2:52 PR). But that was with training primitive by current standards. After some 'life issues' intervened I basically gave up trying to qualify.

Then, in my late 50's I re-started training. After 2 attempts I was finishing with 20 to 30 minutes under BQ. It gets easier as you age.