Boston is closed

One good thing that did come out today is that hotel rooms are opening up. I looked into the Hilton Back Bay yesterday and the hotel was completely booked. I just looked today, and a ton of hilton hotels have all opened up. So if you did get a chance to register, start looking today thru the week and see about securing a good room now that people cancelled their reservations.

You name yourself well....Bum, or should it be child?

Must be, name calling and all. Didn't your mother tell you to be careful what you say or wish for? Obviously, she didn't or the "child" didn't listen.

"Damn! I'm an idiot," is what idiots like me should be saying. I solo-ed a qualifying time 53 minutes below my 45-49 age group standard in June just so I could sign up for Boston in 2011. Knew the date. Same as my birthday. Just didn't get it done. Nothing stopping me all day from logging on to the BAA site. Thought about it once or twice. "Oh yeah, I should go ahead and sign up, just to get it done." Mind you, registration closed out here at 2pm effectively, so... Still, my fault. But I have to say, I haven't done Boston since '04 and I had no idea that it didn't still take months to fill up.

Shhh. You'll ruin the pity party! No personal responsibility is allowed in this thread!

Have some more whine!

I did have the luxury to sit on my pc and fight the broken registration link/process until I found the correct link, and then subsequently successfully registered on the first try.

However, a friend that does not have this luxury called me the night before and asked me if I would register her. She gave me all her info, credit card number etc, and I registered her.

All this to say... When there's a will there's a way.

Personally, I'd rather see 5000 pairs of toned women's legs pre race than a bunch of hairy men's, so feel free to keep it at 3:40 for women.

As for all these 189mdns that ran under 2:30, don't they at some point qualify as elite??? I know women qualify as elite wave under 2:42, so I doubt they have to worry with battling the everyday joe's like myself, if they can prove they're that fast.

Fat old man you ran a 2:32? That would put you in top 3 for you age group last year. Email BAA I'm sure you can still get in.

Headphone runner wrote:

Shhh. You'll ruin the pity party! No personal responsibility is allowed in this thread!

Have some more whine!

I'm really trying to figure your post out.

Why do you feel the need to comment? Do you really need an explanation of why people are discussing this topic?

fast old man wrote:

Fat old man you ran a 2:32? That would put you in top 3 for you age group last year. Email BAA I'm sure you can still get in.

Not in my last one. Did a 2:32 in the one before that. I think the qualifying standard is 3:30 for 45 -49? Could be wrong. Anyway, did a 2:37. But the next guy was 20 minutes back. Which is to say it wasn't competitive and I only ran the damn thing to get a time. It was a weird experience and quite frankly kind of boring. No interest in races where I'm gonna be all by myself. I can go out my front door and do that any time I want. Good idea to email BAA, but also embarrassing. I fully expect them to tell me to go pleasure myself. Now if I had a 2:25...

alcre wrote:

That's nice, but all that means is more weirdos who reserved hotel rooms a year early have a chance of getting in.

So people who plan ahead are weird? That's not the only ridiculous implication of your statement. Why do you assume that everyone who made early reservations is slow and that all fast people waited to make them? That makes no sense. It's probably a pretty even spread of people, in terms of their qualifying times.

Fat Old Man wrote:

fast old man wrote:

Fat old man you ran a 2:32? That would put you in top 3 for you age group last year. Email BAA I'm sure you can still get in.

Not in my last one. Did a 2:32 in the one before that. I think the qualifying standard is 3:30 for 45 -49? Could be wrong. Anyway, did a 2:37. But the next guy was 20 minutes back. Which is to say it wasn't competitive and I only ran the damn thing to get a time. It was a weird experience and quite frankly kind of boring. No interest in races where I'm gonna be all by myself. I can go out my front door and do that any time I want. Good idea to email BAA, but also embarrassing. I fully expect them to tell me to go pleasure myself. Now if I had a 2:25...

I would definitely give it a shot. Just explain the situation. I doubt there are a whole bunch of guys trying to fight their way in with solo 2:37s in the 45-49 age group.

Don't be embarrassed. What's the worst that will happen? They'll say no?

Aquafina wrote:

but if someone put on a quality event, with STANDARDS (not just another mass marathon i.e what boston has become) you could attract a good number of people.

The market is there, time for someone to exploit it.

Someone did:

It was called the Exeter marathon last year, and some guy ran 2:21 in a field of only 54. Good stuff for a first year. Top woman broke 3:00.

Response from BAA regarding 2012:

"Thank you for your inquiry.

Although the BAA reserves the right to change it's qualifying standard at any time it is unlikely that it will change before 2012 since the qualifying window for that race has already begun.

Best of luck in your future running endeavors."

Obviously, there stance can change or this might just be a canned response.

lngrun wrote:

You name yourself well....Bum, or should it be child?

Must be, name calling and all. Didn't your mother tell you to be careful what you say or wish for? Obviously, she didn't or the "child" didn't listen.

Kiss my ass turtle.

deerfoot wrote:

Aquafina wrote:

but if someone put on a quality event, with STANDARDS (not just another mass marathon i.e what boston has become) you could attract a good number of people.

The market is there, time for someone to exploit it.

Someone did:

http://www.gansettmarathon.com

It was called the Exeter marathon last year, and some guy ran 2:21 in a field of only 54. Good stuff for a first year. Top woman broke 3:00.

I'm going this year.

moron dat later wrote:

Lets face facts. The whole thing is a big money making operation from start to finish so lets do away with the charade of qualifying based on time altogether and auction off the spots to the highest 25,000 bidders, ebay style. That would insure that the slow ass runners (with money) would not be discriminated against if they had the cash to make a strong bid.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the BAA treats the Boston Marathon as simply a money-making business, otherwise they could have started gouging registrants with higher entrance fees ($200+) a few years ago.

And Boston, probably more than the other world marathon majors, might be the less endowed corporately (at least my guess), at least Boston seems to have a more difficult time than London, Berlin, and NYCM of getting a large number of the best elites, which is probably due to limited appearance fees. (Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about this, just my hunch.)

First, to the guy who keeps pumping up his marathon, we get it. You made a marathon for people that requires runners have run a tough qualifying time. The over-advertising on the boards is getting annoying.

To the poster right above me - Boston doesn't pay large appearance fees. They rely on their history as a draw for the elites to come run. Next April this will be debated and argued about, ad nauseam again for the 100th time.

My suggestion for this race in the future isn't to have different time periods for runners with better times to enter, it's to alter all the qualifying times across the board. Bring the men down about 5 minutes across the board and the women 15 minutes.

It's nice to see that more and more women are running the race. It's time though to have their qualifying time match up effort-wise with the men.

Mr. Tinker wrote:

I wonder what percentage of people run under their respective qualifying time at Boston? Perhaps the qualifying window should be tightened up to 12 months, as well. There are a lot of 4 hour+ runners on race day, which seems weird. Or are they all charity runners?

In, 2010, 44% of Boston finishers, ran Boston qualifying times.

joeink wrote:

but Rochester, where the hell do you live where there are even 6 chicks kicking the ass of a 2:39 guy?

I think he lives in Rochester.

Bum wrote:

Yeah, when that day comes that I can no longer run I'll walk a 3:45 marathon with you. Pussy.

Mean People Suck