Mass marathons: sub elites get the short end of the stick by poorly seeded runners slowing them down?

Run around them. If it's taking you too much energy to pass these people then you're really not much faster anyway. 😂😂😂

gfhdgfdg wrote:

no, never had that problem, other than small local 5Ks where the kids dash out in front and come to a near stop 200 meters in, that's the worst. Big time marathons, no problem. You don't need to get out fast if you have 26 miles to run. It's not like a 2:25 guy is starting in the 3:30 corral. Usually you have plenty of room to run within 400 meters

+1. Dangerous for everyone involved. no way would i let my 9 year old on the starting line of a 20,000+ person turkey trot. Someday, a kid will get trampled.

And what about the sub sub elites aren’t they special too and what about the people who cut the ports potty line maybe special ports potties for sub elites

You're just mad because your bib has 3 or 4 numbers on it, instead of 2.

Get over yourself.

Want a 1 or 2 digit bib? Run the times.

I ran NYC yesterday. Wave 1, Corral C, so in the front of the first start. I am also confused by the corral placements. The vast amount of runners up there are fast. But to be frank, there are people up there who are in no shape to be up front. Not sure why they would even want to be up there. One thing I really don't understand. I hit the line 1 minute after the first wave gun. I ran at a 7:20 pace. And 7 miles into Brooklyn, I'm passing older people who are not in peak shape who are walking. How could they possibly be that far ahead when I started with the first group? They did not start with the wheelchair groups. Very odd

I ran London this year and started at the front of the first non-age group, non-championship, non-elite wave.

Usually, UK races are quite good for fast amateur/sub-elites. Races will often save spaces upfront for top "championship" runners - i.e. club runners that have hit a certain time (e.g. sub 1:12:30 for a HM for London men) or sometimes top age-group runners. This means that if you can get one of these slots, you can usually get quite a free run.

This year at London I didn't do a qualifying race and so didn't have a qualifying spot - I started with the masses. It was a bit annoying running through age-groupers for the first 10km, but there was space for proper running, albeit with old men and women taking the inside path around corners, even if they were going way too slow. The only really annoying thing was that it was hard to find a group of athletes running at your pace: The mix of age groups and fast non-seeded runners meant it was harder to judge pace and find good drafting partners, and the faster "championship" runners were too far up the road to catch and run with.

In summary - come to UK marathons with a qualifying time and start right behind the elites. Club running in the UK is way better and this flows through to how non-elite but still serious runners are treated at major races.

I was in Corral A yesterday. Sub-elites were ushered to the very front of Wave One, ahead of NYPD and FDNY runners, so they were free to run as fast as they wanted to. Unfortunately, those of us in corral A had to deal with a slow-as-molasses first few minutes weaving around the slower runners. Honestly, those in Orange A and Local Competitive (front of green) have it way better because there aren't any invitation-only groups slowing down the front. I'm not sure why the NYPD and FDNY divisions can't head up the front of the Orange (where sub-elites used to start) or have their own earlier start.

I think it varies by race but I've rarely seen it be an issue. I think everyone is getting their sea legs back after COVID so not surprising their may have been some hiccups at NYC this year. Most of the longer races I've run like Monterey Bay half marathon and Big Sur Marathon have enough corrals that its isn't usually an issue. The issue I see with sub elites is that often the spread for their corral is the largest b/c there's so few people who are running a sub 2:45 relative to the 3-4.5 hour folks.

At NYC this year only 155 people broke 2:45 so if you subtract the elites you are going to have a 20+ minute spread for men in the sub elite field. I've seen this in a lot of half marathons where the the first non seeded corral is 1:15 to 1:30 simply b/c there's not that many runners who are breaking 1:30. However it shouldn't be that hard to move ones way up to the front if they are one of those 1:15 runners.

As for kids running in a local 5K, they are kids. I'm not a super fast runner but I go fast enough to generally finish in the top 10 of most local 5 or 10Ks. I try to have good situational awareness I'll often run to one side and maybe go out faster than my race pace just to clear the kids or if I think its going to be super crowded I'll actually wait a bit before taking off b/c by the first 200 yards it almost always clears out.

One has to consider their surroundings. If you are running a top certified race like the Carlsbad 5000 or Peachtree I'd assume the race organizers are going to be pretty strict on who starts up front. If you are running a local Oktoberfest 5K with 500 runners its probably not the best option to set your PR and everyone will be in the same boat in terms of swimming past slower runners and if that's an issue for you its probably more of a reflection of you than the race organizer.

I used to do 25 to 30 local races a year and it was rare that I couldn't sprint to the front within 20 or 30 meters and while I may not have won the race I don't think my early speed had any negative impact to my overall time.

If you are a so-called "sub-elite", the mass marathons are probably the worst possible place to run if you have a time goal. Go somewhere that's still competitive but less crowded.

hobby jogging harry wrote:

If you are a so-called "sub-elite", the mass marathons are probably the worst possible place to run if you have a time goal. Go somewhere that's still competitive but less crowded.

I see what you're saying, but this is a tough thing to manage. I understand the annoyance of being slowed down a bit at the start of races, but if you just let yourself chill out for a mile or two it's going to open up and you'll be fine. The problems with medium-sized marathons is that they often coincide with a half marathon or 10 mile, and you can end up trying to weave through a crowd of walkers over the last few miles. I'd rather deal with people running 30-60 seconds/mile slower than me at the beginning of a race than navigate people walking in groups of 4 or 5 spread across the road at the end. I was at the finish of Colfax in Denver a few weeks ago to see a friend run and the woman's winner was just swamped by half marathon walkers. No lead bike, nothing. They were letting traffic through the roads in front of her when she was just a few seconds from each intersection. Combining marathons and half marathons has been a big factor in all of the lead runners getting off course stories that have popped up lately.

Finding a marathon without 30,000 people and the attendant headaches but that also takes things like course marking, etc. seriously is tougher than you'd think. Twin Cities is a nice happy medium but I think races like that are becoming more and more rare.