Update: Paris Marathon will let you have a water bottle...... As long as you are trying to break 2:50. Is this ageist/sexist?

I totally agree that requiring people to bring their own water bottles is stupid. However, to the point around whether the 2.50 cut off is sexist, I disagree with you there.

Its a lot easier for men to run that fast than it is for women. Paris marathon are giving water bottle rights to a LOT more men than women. They're essentially saying the top, say, 3% (obviously using made up numbers here) of men get water water bottles, whereas only the top 0.5% of women will. That does feel unfair to me.

If you are a female 2.55 runner for example, you would feel extremely put out by this - relatively speaking you are a lot more talented and closer to the top of the sport than a male 2.49 runner, but they get water bottles and you don't. I would be pissed!

How are they validating someone “targeting 2:50”? Based on seed time? And what is the allowable Delta before they decide you’re not legitimately aiming for 2:50?

Either way, if they really want to go down the “sustainability” path they should have just gone with some eco-friendly cup. I’m sure there are brands making cups from biodegradable or recycled materials. But it would have cost organizers more $$$ so instead they cut the cups and spin it as a performative “environmentally conscious” move. Same deal as Apple removing the charging brick from new phone boxes, claiming it’s for “sustainability” when in reality it cuts product and shipping cost, which isn’t passed onto the consumer.

Also I just looked at last year's results. Only 16 women broke 2.50, whereas nearly 700 men did. So yeah, this is unfair. For women at that level, you are not going to run the Paris marathon when your options are either to lose minutes by carrying / refilling water, or otherwise not drink at all. So, the best sub-elite women don't run the Paris marathon or they lose significant time compared to the equivalent male runner, because of the additional challenges they have.

Things like this seem really minor at first glance, but its little decisions like this that add up and mean that women are constantly disadvantaged in sports. Not to be dramatic, but speaking from experience!

Definitely right:

apnews.com

This runner was bothered by blizzard of disposable cups at races. She invented something better

https://apnews.com/author/alexa-st-john

Kristina Smithe was running a marathon in California a few years ago when she started thinking about all the waste such events produce — especially the blizzard of disposable paper cups that can pile up at water spots.

Open link

Im sure there’re other entrepreneurs but this is one alternative that exists.

There are other races (e.g. Boston) that provide water bottle service for a limited number of elite/sub-elite runners, but do so by their relative level of competitiveness. That is, there is a time cutoff for men and a different one for women. This sort of system seems far less likely to be controversial.

Carrying a water bottle doesn't seem to be a huge burden since we typically do this in training, but it would have an impact on one's time which plausibly matters for the competitive recreational runners.

I think they should go a step further... 2:50 cutoff time for the whole field. If you're not running faster than 2:50, you're not a serious marathoner anyway. If your hobby is really jogging for 26.2 miles, you can just do laps around the neighborhood.

This is a totally idiotic rule.

The whole reason why people are signing up for races is, a certified and measured course, accurate timing and proper aid stations to run as fast as possible.

Without that, it's just an expensive sightseeing run in Paris.

Sorry, but its a bit hillarious that you think most people are driving to compete at Paris marathon. Its Paris, not Atlanta.

Easy, remove the bottles from checkpoints for anyone doing worse than 2:50 pace!

I think that we should be doing whatever we can to save the planet, but eliminating paper cups at marathons is just performative. Where I live, they ban stuff like straws and plastic cutlery but then turn around and accommodate anyone that wants to build a massive data center. That data center will do far more harm in the long run.

I like the rule. To me it isn't about CO2 or anything, but rather all the people necessary to clean up all that crap. Either you are paying those people to stand there and clean up after a bunch of big babies, or you have to find a lot of volunteers who volunteer to do that. Totally unnecessary. Make people clean up their own frickin garbage. And they should lower the race fees while they're at it.

* Lower race fees

* No stupid tshirt

* bring your own cup

* pick up your own garbage

I like the rule. To me it isn't about CO2 or anything, but rather all the people necessary to clean up all that crap. Either you are paying those people to stand there and clean up after a bunch of big babies, or you have to find a lot of volunteers who volunteer to do that. Totally unnecessary. Make people clean up their own frickin garbage. And they should lower the race fees while they're at it.

* Lower race fees

* No stupid tshirt

* bring your own cup

* pick up your own garbage

Dumb and sexist. Reminds me of the cardboard beds at the Olympics. These people don't understand sustainability like they think they do. They tinker around the edges on something trivial and mess up performance in the process.

And to not have separate cut-off times for men and women? Blatantly sexist and shows their contempt for women's sport that they didn't even consider that. Makes you wonder if they forgot women were even competing?

Have you ever traveled anywhere outside of a major city center? Most people drive cars, everywhere.

It's not my intention to denigrate anyone's motivation for running the ParisMarathon, but I'd guess the number who sign up for "an expensive sightseeing run in Paris" is not insignificant.

Regardless of how any of us feel about it, these big city mega-marathons turn away more applicants than they accept so they won't be hurt if you or I chose a different venue.

Even sightseeing hobbyjoggers don't want to carry their own bottles. Aid stations are a basic perk that people expect when they pay for a race. The you got lots of people in the 3:00 to 3:30 who do care about their time.

By that logic, why have a timing system? Waste of money because people can time themselves on the Garmin. Why even close the roads, you can run on the sidewalk and wait for cars. Think of all the money you'd save.

They probably picked 2:50 because they wanted a time cutoff where the field wasn't crowded, so people wouldn't jostle each other grabbing bottles or trip on discarded ones, and so that the volunteers could get everything cleared away before too many runners clogged the course.

If they gave women a different cutoff, then they'd be having to screen for sex at a point in the race where thousands and thousands of men have already passed and the course is crowded.

Is it unfair that fewer women are going to get bottles? Probably. Is it unjust? No. It's a decision based in legitimate, practical concerns.

I don't think your extension to my argument naturally follows. I suppose you could do that with any argument. Take what the person is saying, tack on a few more extreme examples of it, and then argue against the more extreme argument. Oh yeah. Straw-man is what that is called. You have tried to shift our attention to a "straw man" that you knock down, thinking that knocking down the straw man is the same as knocking down my argument. But it isn't. Moving a little responsibility to the participants is not the same as destroying the whole institution.