Grandma's Marathon 2021 -- June 19th

I was wondering this too, and hoping it was worst case scenario. I will say that their early planning of something like this gives me hope that at least the race will actually happen. By May the public health guidance could totally change for the better. I imagine there will still be some sort of stagger, but maybe not as strict as this.

Why hello there my dear friend!

It will take ages I guess. Maybe they'll be able to start more at once if things are significantly better by then? Here's hoping.

What will they do about people who actually want to race the race (against each other and the gun, not a chip-time time trial)?

I suppose they could all be started in the same wave, and the gun could be in that wave too.

nonmarathoner just curious wrote:

What will they do about people who actually want to race the race (against each other and the gun, not a chip-time time trial)?

If they stagger it like every 5 seconds or something I don't think you lose much of the racing against each other aspect of it. You'll always have someone to chase, and I'm sure packs will organically form along the course. That's the optimist in me anyways.

You should really be more pessimistic. It would be way better if they started everyone at once. I have to go now, goodbye!

I have done a bunch of phased start races now. They can be extremely efficient. If they do it over two days (as is common in WA state) and start five runners every minute, that's six hours of starts each day. Totally feasible. Races here have been moved to parks and paths and off city streets due to longer duration.

Yes. That sounds good. Start five people per five minutes, for 800 minutes. That is not so long! God, peopel are so impatient these days, it is like they would want a real race or something, what b@sytards. I mean it's not like the road closures would cause a problem or anything!

Grandpa wrote:

The youtube algorithm suggested this video for me. How long will it take 4,000 runners to start 5 runners at a time? Will Grandmas ditch this plan if all adults are vaccinated (or least able to be) by the end of May as President Biden announced yesterday?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C_JJKf8G8o

Not everyone is going vaccinated by the end of May... there will just be enough vaccine by the end of May to cover it. Very different. I think Grandmas should move to labor day... it's sure bet they could run the race with no distancing then.

Are the waves just randomly assigned or are they based on expected/past performance?

Covid superspreader wrote:

Grandpa wrote:

The youtube algorithm suggested this video for me. How long will it take 4,000 runners to start 5 runners at a time? Will Grandmas ditch this plan if all adults are vaccinated (or least able to be) by the end of May as President Biden announced yesterday?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C_JJKf8G8o

Not everyone is going vaccinated by the end of May... there will just be enough vaccine by the end of May to cover it. Very different. I think Grandmas should move to labor day... it's sure bet they could run the race with no distancing then.

My GUESS is that it isn't literally only 5 wide. They are just demonstrating starting boxes like in cc races.

If you are not running at least 2:15 you’re not really racing a marathon anyways.

The real question is will there be a double-digit tailwind the whole way again this year or only single digits

Some massive PRs there some years, sometimes faster than CIM

Boston and even US Trials really needs to make an out/back or looped qualifications requirement, point-to-point can be silly sometimes (yeah I know Boston is p2p).

Yes, the race will actually happen with such advance preparation, also not hoping for any worse scenario, by 2 - 3 months some guidelines may change to the good side making it less strictly compared to present in regard to the safety and health of the public, fingers crossed.

slomo wrote:

The real question is will there be a double-digit tailwind the whole way again this year or only single digits

Some massive PRs there some years, sometimes faster than CIM

Boston and even US Trials really needs to make an out/back or looped qualifications requirement, point-to-point can be silly sometimes (yeah I know Boston is p2p).

With its de minimis elevation loss, Grandma's meets the World Athletics standards for international qualifying times. Boston and CIM do not.

height, vertical jump, etc wrote:

Covid superspreader wrote:

Not everyone is going vaccinated by the end of May... there will just be enough vaccine by the end of May to cover it. Very different. I think Grandmas should move to labor day... it's sure bet they could run the race with no distancing then.

My GUESS is that it isn't literally only 5 wide. They are just demonstrating starting boxes like in cc races.

This article states that it is literally five at a time and looking at the video, it appears to be every 4 seconds. Assuming it is every 4 seconds, this means it will take a little less than an hour (53:20). [4000 runners at a rate of 75 a minute.]

Ackley wrote:

With its de minimis elevation loss, Grandma's meets the World Athletics standards for international qualifying times. Boston and CIM do not.

That's a good point, it's almost flat. In theory if the right people show up in the right shoes and this happens again this year, going to be a bunch of records, it was perhaps better than Boston 2011 and would qualify people for lots of things (except it's p2p)

If I remember correctly nearly 40 women OTQ, more than CIM? Super fast course.

Anybody hear any updates? I'm still optimistic it will happen with the current vaccination rate. Will they try to require something like a negative test before?

It's officially on per their social media posts! Not sure how much of the original proposed safety protocol they will be sticking to