Boilermaker 2007 Sub Elite

Some of the big races have different seed times for men and women, but the seeding process that Jim describes is similar to Peachtree. That race slightly different standards for the Top Seeded Open and Masters Men/Women, but the Subseeded category is just based on time.

Last year at the Boilermaker, there were approx. 17 elite-seeded runners with times above 50 minutes. They were primarily elite open women (including several from Hansons-Brooks), along with the top four Master women and three of the seven elite Master men. Every woman who finished faster than 55:50 had been assigned an elite number, so I'm not sure what you mean about this being unfair to the best women.

I think he is not in the wrong by placing according to times. Why do females need to see females in order to compete, when there are guys around you, that will be running at your same pace? Why would you want to race a girl who will run 2 to 3 minutes slower than you as opposed to some guy who might happen to run the exact same pace as you? Would you be willing to take a chance running against other females who may or may not be in your league? I don't think it's fair to the guys who get placed behind you that are faster than you. Would you want lets say a group of about 100 people in front of you that run slower than you? As far as not being in the sub elite group run faster. If you for some reason need a female to run with to feel comfortable, find one at the start and stand next to her.

Jim whats your E-mail?

16x, I understand that there's a bigger difference between the men's winner and 55, and the women's winner and 55, but remember, it's not like the men's winner is standing next to that 55 guy at the start line. They are in two different corrals. An open male running 49-50 is going to be in the sub-elite corral and if we put in women doing 61-62, then you've got that same spread, but they're in the SAME corral. But, as I said, I will see if we can relax the sub-elite women's cutoff by a few minutes as I understand the desire for a warm-up area. Please, I am not against women runners. I just need to make sure that we have something workable.

Finley, email me: bmaker2007 at dissidents dot com

Thanks Jim.

I just have to say again Utica Boildermaker was fabulous and everyone within driving distance should run this race at least once. I should do it again!

It had everything going for it, despite the crowded start, the best post race party I'd ever been to, fantastic support, loved the course (except for mile five to 6 or was it 6 t0 7), loved to hate the big hill, great competition, great food and beer, best organization I have ever seen.

get over there and run it if you can, you won't regret it.

If I was a 55 year old 57 minute 15k guy , the last thing I would want is to be placed ahead of a bunch of people that can drop me in the first half mile, just because I’m relatively fast for my age. But at the same time I wouldn’t want to be choked up in a corral with 1000 people, many of which have bogus seed times 20 minutes faster than they’ve ever run.. There’s a bunch of 50 plus guys (and ladies) who are serious runners, and fast for their age, that could benefit from a sub elite start. (Not familiar with the race, maybe they already do this?)

It’s sort of the same thing with the gender issue. You’re fast for your age or gender, but you’re not walking away with money or you’d be in the elite.

Maybe a second “sub elite 2” corral would help. Maybe another cut off at 60 minutes, or whatever will get you another 300 people in there. You could offer them the warm up area and some port a johns. This way you could get a few more of the sub elite women in, but you would still reduce some of the weaving.

Which is it:

letsrun@dissidents.com

or

bmaker2007@dissidents.com

? And are you using LetsRun as your only vehicle to distribute this information or will it be posted on the Boilermaker site?

Also, is there a deadline for getting this information to you? I'm thinking of running but I haven't registered for the race yet, and I probably won't register for a few weeks because of an unrelated issue. I'm a 50-51 guy--is there any way I would be denied sub-elite entry because others registered earlier?

57 minutes will put you in a good corral - don't worry too much about it. There's ample space to warm up at the normal start and many porta-johns speckled throughout the general warm-up area.

I feel like some people are making the general starting/warm up area to be a madhouse with no space. There are huge amounts of space and ample places to get a long warm up in. There are many porta-johns and woods if you really have to go.

I've never had a problem with the general warm-up area - just remember you're running a race that:

1. Is one of the best run races in the country

2. Has the best post race party I've ever been to (out of many)

3. Has (in my opinion) the best "per capita" crowd support of ANY race in the country.

4. HAS ALL THE FREE DELICIOUS BEER YOU WANT!!!

In short, lighten up Francis!!

if you would be consider an elite but want to be in the sub elite pack basically using the race as a work out would that be allowed. looking to use the race as a tempo.

Lost World wrote:

4. HAS ALL THE FREE DELICIOUS BEER YOU WANT!!!

Yes, Saranac is high quality beer and they aren't miserly with it!

Please use bmaker2007 at dissidents dot com for correspondence. I created that mailbox specifically for this purpose. I suggest that you get info to me before July 1. We make the actual time cutoff based on the number of people we can fit into the corral, not on who sent in data first (but if you wait until the last minute, don't be surprised if you get left out).

We are going to relax the standards for sub-elite women by a few minutes. I don't have a hard number, but for the sake of argument let's say 60 minute cutoff. If it winds up being faster, you won't have lost anything other than the time to email me.

Hey -- I was the Boilermaker timer 1985-2006, and was responsible for putting people in the sub-elite corral. Jim Fiore was a big help, and I'm really happy that he's the man for it this year. It's a hard job.

It's always been the case that there are runners (male and female) in the invited/elite corral who are going to run more slowly than everybody in the sub-elite corral and probably more slowly than a bunch in the first regular corral. But that's because they are noted masters or veteran runners and the race has brought them in, and they're going to go up front with the elites. There's really no way around that and I don't think it's a problem. Yeah, they're not going to be starting at a 5 minute pace but -- this is significant -- they are runners who've been around big races for a long time and they know how to conduct themselves. So I've never regarded them as accidents waiting to happen.

I think Jim's answered the male-female thing satisfactorily, meaning that there's no really good answer. The geography, if you will, of the Boilemaker start is difficult, and I don't think it's practical to have more small corrals.

One poster talked about bogus seed times. Sad, but true -- still, I've never thought that numerically that was a big problem. OF COURSE there are liars but my estimate is that towards the front there are probably dozens at most and that's not going to cause a big problem. When I was the timer I typed all the paper entries and verified all the online ones. If I saw an age-sex combination that seemed unlikely for the stated best 15k time I would check the seed time myself, by going back in the race archives. I'm sure I missed some.

In 2006 there was a bit of a number printing problem and I had to scramble because one corral I was going to put 2500 people in only had 1500 bib numbers. That meant moving the time divisions for the corrals. I had these huge clusters of people claiming "popular" times (1:10,1:15, multiples of round pace numbers, etc.). I had to find out who was, um, exaggerating. So I went back and checked them all out (meaning I wrote a program to see, for example, how many of the "1:15" or "1:30" people really had run those times). Lots of them were bogus by 5 to 15 minutes and moving them into the corral pointed to by their real times dramatically decreased my corral packing problem. But these were runners back in the pack, not at the front.

Anyway, believe me -- everybody involved tried to be as fair as possible. And Jim Fiore and Pat Leone (Leone Timing &

Results, my successor) will be just as fair this year.

Jim's not quite right about how the sub-elite corral is only a year old. True, it was only last year that everything got negotiated properly and the sub-elites got the privileges they needed besides being in their own corral. But that corral itself goes back 3 or 4 years.

It all started when I needed a place to put the very good runners who were not invited runners. Bibs 1-100 have always been absolutely reserved for the invited runner guy; I assigned all the other numbers but had no right to place people in 1-100. This made it very hard to know what to do with the good runners, who for years had had to find places at the front of the first corral, get there early, not be able to warm up, etc. etc. So I asked the race management if I could have 200 numbers for myself, that is, numbers I could assign to the very good runners. They agreed, and with those numbers in hand I looked at the best 15k times people gave, asked Jim and Pat for advice, etc. I really think it's worked well, which doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Josh McDougall gets a lot of attention on letsrun. I remember when his name popped up -- I think he was maybe 14 or 15 -- with a very fast seed time. I doubted it because I'd never heard of him, and emailed to see if there was a mistake (it's common for people, especially kids, to give a 10k time rather than a 15k time). I remember getting an unequivocal answer from his father -- no mistake.

One more thing for you Boilermaker runners. In my 25 years as a timer I never timed a race with invited runners in which at least one slow person wasn't assigned a low number. That's just the way it is.

This year it's going to be me. I'm supposed to get #100 which is an elite number. Even back in my prime I couldn't run 50 mins for 15k, though I certainly could have run 55. Now, forget it. I'm shooting for 1:17 - 1:20 but I'll have that low number on my chest. I'm not going into the invited corral, and I'm not going into the sub-elite corral either, though my number would get me into both. I'll go back where I belong and take my chances with the rest of the 8 minute crowd. It's really tempting not to, but as the Richard M. Nixon famously said, "that would be wrong."

And finally, though I've posted this before, if you Boilermaker runners want to see the 1985-2006 archives (plus 1978) you can find them all at

http://www.polymorphs.net

Don Mitchell

ex-Runtime Services

Jim-- When will we find out if we made the sub elite? I sent you my info last night.

Jim get a handle on your event, if a female were to run 55 or better, low to sub 17 or a sub 36, that female would be about 2:43:00 to about 2:46:30 for the marathon, not what I would call World Class...but...she would be able to claim sub-elite status in most every race in this country & get a start on the front line. If you don't let in the 59:59-55:01 females into the sub-elite corral they will spend their time during the first 5km weaving around. Not a great way to help out runners trying to get to the next level beyond sub-elite.

Thanks for listening.

Jim, does Utica still have those crazy street lights that make you stop at every corner during the race weekend?

Don, good to hear from you! Just think, an entire B'maker weekend and no headaches! I envy you. For the record, my comment about sub-elite being one year old was to be taken literally regarding that special corral, not that you didn't have special "low" numbers (which I think I mentioned). BTW, how's the islands?

chefdrp, please resend. I have not rcvd anything from you.

That polymorphs site is the best collection of archived race results I have ever seen. I wish more people were doing that way back then...damn why are only some people smart and cool at the same time.

Jim-- Just sent it again. It didnt get sent back to me. I wonder what went wrong? Let me know when you get it.

BUMP. Jim did you get it?

Yep! Thanks.

I have replied to everyone who sent me an email as of 9:15 AM EDT today. If you didn't get a reply, then please resend.

Again, if you ran the B'maker in 2005 or 2006 in 55 or better, you'll automatically be considered, no need to email me.

If you're looking for an elite invite, you need to contact the elite coordinator. I have nothing to do with that.

PLEASE include a link to race(s) you're using to verify performance (most of the folks who sent me an email did, and I thank you).

Finally, for women, although we have not made a decision on the breakpoint, I'm going to suggest that anyone who's running 60 or better email for consideration. Rough equivalents would be sub 19 5k, sub 39 10k, 3 hour marathon.

Thanks

Actually, if those females are running 55 or better like you claim...they will be in the sub elite. So I don't know what your argument there is and I'm sure Jim doesn't either. As far as letting those sub 60 females in the sub elite, why? Who are they going to be weaving around? Other males who run the same speed as them? That's why they are put in according to times. If x person runs x time and y person runs x time, why would you think that there would be weaving going on? I think by letting the females that are sub 60 in and not letting the men that are sub 60 in, is unfair. Now, favoritism is being made towards the females. Not fair. I think the men that are sub 60 should complain because they have to weave around people too.