Since Boston closed so early will they change the qualifying times?

No because runners like me who qualified at the Philadelphia Marathon with a 3:31 was shunned by unqualified runners who begged there way into the race

The Boston Athletic Association is doing a disservice by letting runners who missed the cut to run the race!!

Educate me

How do you get into boston without qualifying?

I know there are boston corrupt corporate guys who get a bib and don't run it, getting complementary entries to give away at the water cooler and then charity runners, but is there anyone else?

chamillitary countin cash wrote:

Educate me

How do you get into boston without qualifying?

I know there are boston corrupt corporate guys who get a bib and don't run it, getting complementary entries to give away at the water cooler and then charity runners, but is there anyone else?

I think that's it, but it adds up to a lot of people. Aside from the bandits.

Either make the standards tougher or there isn't any point in running a marathon to qualify after November.

shaniqua means that there are plenty of runners who missed the cut by several seconds and still got in. Shame on the BAA for letting this happen!

chamillitary countin cash wrote:

Educate me

How do you get into boston without qualifying?

I know there are boston corrupt corporate guys who get a bib and don't run it, getting complementary entries to give away at the water cooler and then charity runners, but is there anyone else?

=We know YOU are a f'ing tool who doesn't understand what a marathon is, how it works, or why it works...and def can see a bigger picture.

yes, the new standard is to sign-up within two months of registration opening.

you gotta be pretty quick to do that!

i train year-round by signing-up for smaller races within a few weeks of registration opening. it's good practice.

It must be known that plenty of runners who missed the cut by several seconds still managed to gain entry.

boston marathon is a joke. I ran a 3:31 in Philly with 9 minutes to spare and could not register.

I don't think they'll even consider this (which they don;t have to in any case) until the field fills up within the first week. But of course that may very well happen next year.

lind wrote:

boston marathon is a joke. I ran a 3:31 in Philly with 9 minutes to spare and could not register.

so i assume you were too slow to run a 3:31 in philly last year? or in any other marathon before november 09?

and unfortunately you're too slow to register for that exeter marathon that's been advertised here.

we'll miss you, but you can come run the "joke" in 2011 if you'd like.

Toolalert wrote:

chamillitary countin cash wrote:

Educate me

How do you get into boston without qualifying?

I know there are boston corrupt corporate guys who get a bib and don't run it, getting complementary entries to give away at the water cooler and then charity runners, but is there anyone else?

=We know YOU are a f'ing tool who doesn't understand what a marathon is, how it works, or why it works...and def can see a bigger picture.

what about what im saying is inaccurate? i was on a triathlon mailing list once and get emails all the time from corporate people who registered for BAA half marathon early and decided they arent running it and want to sell their numbers and transfer them, only to find out they cannot

They need to something. While it's not boston's job to care about other marathons I can only imagine that late Fall and early winter races will suffer due to the early closing of Boston.

maybe pick a good two hands full of marathons that are qualifiers and that's it.

eliminating the corporate give aways, charities etc would be great but that aint gonna happen.

It has nothing to do with charities or corporate sponsors. Boston Marathon is a joke. There are no qualifying times and you can still get accepted if you missed the cut by a few. All you need to do is write and beg them!

tommy h, you are a joke. 3:31 is well under a qualifying time of 3:40.

i understand that 3:31 is less than 3:40. and i understand it's a slow, easy time to get.

if you wanted to run boston 2010 then you should've jogged your 3:31 earlier in the year, or at last year's philly.

i recognize that none of us expected boston to fill up so quickly, but that's life. next year you'll know to plan ahead.

Its very unlikely they will toughen up the standard because what they have found is that when they standard tightens they actually get more runners who sign up. This is particularly true in the higher age brackets. Basically not everyone who has boston qualifiers sign up. In fact the great majority do not. But if Boston lowers the time it gains some prestige and a lot of these people who have been passing it up set it as a new goal. As far as the charity and free pass runners. There are a lot, but I think in terms of total % of the the field they make up like 10% or so. which isn't that much. It does suck to get left out, but of course your philly qualifier is good for the 2011 boston, and you'll have no trouble signing up early.

As for the BAA they are kind of stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place. They can drop the qualifier massively, to the point where there are only 30 or 40 thousand possible qualifiers out there and risk not filling up. They can drop it a sensible amount and actually have more people sign up and increase there problems. They can make the race larger, they did this for the 100th. The race went off without too much trouble but because of the size of the field and the small roads there was a feeling that most of the field couldn't really race, they were more forced to just run the pace of the mass. Or they can leave it the way it is, still get huge #'s and just deal with a little whining.

Personally I'd love to see them really drop the qualifier way down. At one point it was 2:50 for open men. How about they go for 2:45 and drop all the other times by 25 minutes as well. They might not fill up but they might just have the most competitive top to bottom marathon in the world. The romantic side of me likes to think it would kick start a revolution in marathoning by upping the standard people across the country would double their efforts and the BAA would have to continue to drop the times and before long the first 5,000 finishers would be under 3hrs. The average finishing time in the marathon would not just get back to where it was in the early 80's but get better and with massively increased #'s.

But I'd bet the BAA board sees it in the opposite light. They view there soft qualifier as something that is perfectly placed in that the average person can't do it without a little work, but they can do it without so much work that it seems prohibitive. They'd argue that they are a big part of what draws people to the sport and keeps them in it the first few years and by doing that they have helped expand the running world greatly. Further more if they were to go they way I propose that people wouldn't double their efforts that instead the majority would decide that it was impossible and just not be runners and it would begin to spin running in a downward cycle back to the tiny cult group it was prior to the boom.

All that is just a long winded way of saying that it isn't really all that simple of a thing to fix so stop whining and run the damn thing in 2011.

Ok, it is my fault for not running a spring marathon. I was still losing a bit of post-pregnancy weight. Boston Marathon is still a joke for letting runners beg their way to the starting line. To the race director, you are a joke for accepting runners who ran over the qualifying mark!

Why doesn't some other marathon step up and start a marathon (or alter a current one) with slightly tougher standards (example sub 3:00 for men, 3:30 women 18-34yr/old) and set quotas for each age group/time (maybe 500-1000?) Also what sets Boston apart from so many races is that it starts at 10am (sometimes noon) on a holiday. Why won't another race realize the benefits of this and run on a holiday, or even at night? How much fun would that be to run through a major city on a saturday night? Start a race at 5pm (with maximum time of 5hrs) and have it go through restaurant/bar districts, would get tons of spectators and be lots of fun. Weather is also better at night (temperatures drop rather than heat up).

That is a good thing. My PR is a 3:17 and that was pre-pregnancy. I ran a 3:31 post pregnancy and even the 3:40 is till easy. Let's not forget that runners who did not qualify still got accepted to the marathon

To answer the point of the above poster, I don't think a new marathon with qualifying standards would last long. It wouldn't have Boston's hisotry.

Boston has long had the one-two punch of being the oldest 'continuously' run marathon on the planet and (consequently) requiring stiff qualifying times. It, and any race, really would need both. The age of the race implied prestige and the qualifying times confirmed it. I agree that the qualifying times are too slow now, but before they change them, they might consider enforcing them, as several posters up above have said. I don't know at what point Boston decided to become just another charity hop, but it's moving in that direction. Once they become a parade, they will lose what made the race special; it's just another marathon. I'm afraid it is close to that now. I wouldn't be too sad if it went back to the way it was -the way a lot of races still are: races, not an awfully hard way to make some charity some money.