Already 10 men and 13 women qualified for the US Marathon trials- are the standards too easy?

The qualifying times should be set so that the Trials marathon has a similar number of competitors as the Olympic marathon (100-200 runners).

Whatever that might be...

The only thing hard standards do is stop people from running, training hard, and chasing the dream.

In the end it makes the US marathoners worse. Less talent. Less chance of discovering a diamond. Artificially restricts growth.

Lets not forget Jake Riley ran 2:18:30 in the 2016 trials. In 2020 he ran 2:10 and placed 2nd. What if he had given up running in 2016?

Great marathoners are made from lots of miles over many years. We need to do everything we can to keep college runners consistently training until they are 30+, not artificially push them out of the sport with standards.

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2) I didn't say get rid of a time cutoff. 2:18 is solid. Could a 2:18 guy run out of his mind and run 2:11 at the trials and then with some subpar performances from others sneak in for 3rd? Well, I like the chance to be there.

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Imagine your 800m pr. Now imagine dropping 6 seconds off your pr in a race. It isn't possible.

shootpost wrote:

The only thing hard standards do is stop people from running, training hard, and chasing the dream.

In the end it makes the US marathoners worse. Less talent. Less chance of discovering a diamond. Artificially restricts growth.

Lets not forget Jake Riley ran 2:18:30 in the 2016 trials. In 2020 he ran 2:10 and placed 2nd. What if he had given up running in 2016?

Great marathoners are made from lots of miles over many years. We need to do everything we can to keep college runners consistently training until they are 30+, not artificially push them out of the sport with standards.

There has to be a standards, but it should lean in this direction as much as possible for the reasons mentioned.

1) Clowns are silly. Therapy puppies are silly. Having 100 or so runners in a marathon is not silly.

2) I didn't say get rid of a time cutoff. 2:18 is solid. Could a 2:18 guy run out of his mind and run 2:11 at the trials and then with some subpar performances from others sneak in for 3rd? Well, I like the chance to be there.

3) To push back with your extremism, why have trials at all? Why not just choose the top 3 based on times from previous marathons?

Yes, that's the answer. There's nothing wrong with someone who seemingly doesn't have a shot.

I don't think anyone picked Mark Conover back in 88 (?) but he made it.

It seems an underdog often makes it. It's also a goal for someone to shoot for.

I have a good friend who ran in the trials back in the 1980's. He was never going to make the team but it was a great accomplishment nonetheless and something we old timers talk about to the newer runners in our community.

And, buy the way, he NEVER brings it up and is very humble about it.

women step it up. wrote:

zvcxzcvx wrote:

The men's standard remains harder….

No it isn’t. The men’s standard had 157 men at 2:18 or faster vs 83 women at 2:37 or faster in 2020. The women have more room to develop. Seeing how the women stepped it up in 2020 with the record field size, they are continuing to step it up with the tougher standard for 2024.

You disproved your point trying to prove your point. You can’t say one is harder until we have the data. Sure more men hit 2:18 than women did 2:37, but 2:18 is just 1 minute from 2:19. As in, if people are trying to hit 2:45, they’re not going to miraculously hit 2:37, whereas with 2:19 to 2:18 can happen. We’ll see what happens over the next few years, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the numbers were even or reversed. It may take more than one Olympic cycle though.

Flagpole wrote:

What a weird thing to get worked up over.

Talk about that some more, I'm fascinated and no doubt many others are, too.

shootpost wrote:

The only thing hard standards do is stop people from running, training hard, and chasing the dream.

In the end it makes the US marathoners worse. Less talent. Less chance of discovering a diamond. Artificially restricts growth.

Lets not forget Jake Riley ran 2:18:30 in the 2016 trials. In 2020 he ran 2:10 and placed 2nd. What if he had given up running in 2016?

He did give up running between 2016 and 2020. Didn't run a step for a couple years. Then he came back in 2019 and ran 2:10 at Chicago.

Abdi scoring a 3rd in Atlanta is great for him yet also a sad statement on where marathon development has gone over the past decade.

Easier standards also gave us Chris Clarke and Rod DeHaven as the sole US marathoners at the Sydney Olympics. So that's certainly not the answer that people are delusionally hoping it will be.

[quote]Flagpole wrote:

2) I didn't say get rid of a time cutoff. 2:18 is solid. Could a 2:18 guy run out of his mind and run 2:11 at the trials and then with some subpar performances from others sneak in for 3rd? Well, I like the chance to be there./quote]

If you have a Trials race where it's possible for one guy to have a 7-minute PB, and the hundreds of guys ahead of him fall apart, you've designed a terrible race.

49 americans ran under 2:18 in 2021, when most races were cancelled. You really think the 49th-best guy in the race is going to 'sneak by' 46 people having a bad day? and that's not counting all the actual normal performances we'll see in the rest ofthe qualifiaction period.

The men's qualifying time doesn't need to be any higher than 2:14. The rest is filler so TV can produce feel-good stories about the next Keira D'Amato.

Americans who can't break 2:10 wrote:

Pick It Up wrote:

I think ideally the top 100 men and women?

Top 30 or fewer of each gender. If you want to shut out pretenders, do it right.

The reason that I like having a looser standard (targeting around 100 men and women) is because it makes it easier for somebody highly talented to qualify with a first marathon or hm. For example like Galen Rupp did in 2016.

If you target 30, then it makes it harder for somebody moving up from the 5/10 to qualify, even if they're talented enough to become a medal threat. If it is too tight, then Rupp would have been forced to focus on the marathon sooner. That might have caused him to not make the jump, but instead stay on the track longer. Being able to dabble encourages top talent to try out it out, and focus on it if they qualify for the Olympics. I think it makes us more competitive by bringing some top talent off the track.

I also agree with you on the idea of keeping the trials a little smaller to allow the top runners more space and less crowding. The trials aren't a prize, they're a selection. But we have to recognize the trials aren't the same as the track events. You can't race as often, more can go wrong in a race, most people dont necessarily improve with lots of races over the years, it's tough to impossible to train for the marathon plus another olympic event.

runn wrote:

I have a good friend who ran in the trials back in the 1980's. He was never going to make the team but it was a great accomplishment nonetheless and something we old timers talk about to the newer runners in our community.

And, buy the way, he NEVER brings it up and is very humble about it.

My 8 year-old made regionals in cross-country and finished 138th. We don't pretend she went to state qualifiers, or brag about how close she was to state, becauses he wasn't.

Getting into a race where only the top 3 matter, and you have no chance of being in the top 50, isn't an accomplishment. it's a vacation.

Eh way too early to draw conclusions after 1 race on a fast course that had decent enough conditions. If we went with the new standards with last years window, 170 men would have qualified to 90 women. That's not equity.

I still think that the Trials should have a big field because our sport just doesn't have infrastructure to develop good but not top-end elite post collegiate runners. The Trials has become THE event to shoot for. A marathon with 1,000 people in a major city is beyond doable. I hear the concern that hosts lost out on money in Atlanta so have a truly elite standard for entry fee + lodging & have everyone else pay their way.

I get that the goal is to pick a team but Rupp & Seidel don't care how many people race behind them. They're used to running majors. Regardless of how many people compete, coverage of the best runners in the race can improve drastically. I would rather give good runners something realistic to chase than just line up 10 men & 10 women on a track to pick our marathon team.

The general public won't care about the field sizes even if they're advertised as the most elite of elite. But the running community is going to care a little -- having a qualifier show up at your club run matters. The support that the local community shows a 2:18/2:44 runner is exactly what this sport is about. If big races want to cut support for elites & sub-elites, why shouldn't USATF go all-out to set up a quality race for the best marathoners in this country.

ummmm, what? wrote:

runn wrote:

I have a good friend who ran in the trials back in the 1980's. He was never going to make the team but it was a great accomplishment nonetheless and something we old timers talk about to the newer runners in our community.

And, buy the way, he NEVER brings it up and is very humble about it.

My 8 year-old made regionals in cross-country and finished 138th. We don't pretend she went to state qualifiers, or brag about how close she was to state, becauses he wasn't.

Getting into a race where only the top 3 matter, and you have no chance of being in the top 50, isn't an accomplishment. it's a vacation.

Okay, but what if she keeps running another 4 years, develops, and qualifies for state then, and wins!

That is why you have a big field. It is for development of the sport in the US. Keep as many runners training and engaged as you can, some will develop to be great, most won't, but the more that stay in it the better we will be.

If Kiera D'Amato proved anything it is how much better the US would be at running if the majority of our best runners didn't stop running at 26, and the majority of our second best runners at 21.

Americans who can't break 2:10 wrote:

Pick It Up wrote:

I think ideally the top 100 men and women?

Top 30 or fewer of each gender. If you want to shut out pretenders, do it right.

What's a "pretender"? Personally, the lowest I finished at nats was 18th and the highest was 12th...yet I knew I was never going to break into the top 10 so I was a pretender trying to make an Olympic team. But your definition says no?

Just cut the DSDs.

They used to swab them before they were in a team. Now its all too invasive.

Just count their balls instead. If the women have more than 0, dq them

shootpost wrote:

The only thing hard standards do is stop people from running, training hard, and chasing the dream.

Totally disagree with this statement.

The vast majority of runners, at all ability levels, know that they have no chance of making the Olympic Team, winning a race of any significance, being near the front of any race, and/or running a time that places them in the top 5%.

People have different dreams and continue to train hard to reach different incremental goals. They don't just stop running and training because its hard.

On the contrary, people like running because its hard. It takes hard effort to achieve results, and the results are more valued because of the effort involved to achieve them.

If people actually do stop running, training hard and chasing dreams because they are not anywhere close to meeting tough standards, any male that did not break 2:25 in their first marathon, or female that did not break 2:40, would quit running altogether. Any high school boy that did not run a sub 5 minute mile in high school, or girl at sub 6 minutes. would never run again.

If people stopped running and training without because they are not a top elite, 98% of the finishers in any marathon would not bother to enter or try to finish. Most marathons would cease to exist because as we know them because there would not be enough pack runners entering to pay the bills.

You can set qualifying standards anywhere you want and there will always be a few that will complain that they are too tough. There will always be some that will train hard enough to meet and exceed those standards. And there will always be many that will continue to run, train hard and dream about achieving all different types of personal goals.

If the goal is a big field, then just don't have standards. Let anyone run and there'll be plenty of people willing to pay to say they ran the Olympic Trials. Why not just pick an already established race and make it the trials like Kenya used to do many years ago. Top three Americans make the team.

There are many ways to fix this. Set the "fully compensated" qualifier at the Olympic A standard, then the secondary "american standard" will get you in the race but perhaps no money. If 500 make it, so what? Only a handful will be Olympic A standard.

Then behind that elite corral, just make it a mass participation race. So you can say you ran the Olympic Trails race but not the qualifier portion.

Untrue. As I mentioned earlier, When Bill Rodgers ran 2:09, his current PR was 2:19. You never know when you might catch someone on the upswing of fitness and the realization of their true talent. 2:18 guys in the race doesn't hurt anyone.