Ultra Bear wrote:
I'm a British 2.24 marathoner, who believes that I could do 2:19 marathon with a perfect block/perfect day.
I'm jealous of the OTQ and if I were American, that would be my North Star goal. With these times though, I'd feel deflated, it's too much of a jump. So I agree with people who think they're too harsh. Lots of field don't have a chance in hell at Olympics but I don't think that's all that matters.
Id be in the camp of extending it out to 500+ athletes. It being like 4 yearly version of London Marathon Biritsh Championship, not just Olympic qualification but something for sub elites, weekend warriors and master dad's of 3 to aspire too.
On a practical level, introduce a C standard. For men that would be roughly 2:16-2:20 and women 2:37-2:44 say. C standard has to pay race entry/contribution.
Good luck to those who feel they have more than 0.5% of a 2:16. Probably brings a bit of excitement having such a rigid goal to aim at.
I wish we had something similar in the UK, even if the standard was as tough as a sub 2:16. I ran 2:17 a couple of weeks ago and I know I can shave off a couple of minutes in the next 6-12 months (and fully plan to), but unfortunately UKA don’t provide any incentive to keep chipping away at your time unless if you’re a one in a million talent who will actually represent team GB in the Olympics
Having an Olympic trials here would be fantastic, though our standard would need to be much softer considering only 14 men have gone sub 2:16 so far this year