The "ideal" boston marathon? And how to fix it?

There are so many sides. For instance: give preference to people to have run Boston before, or twenty times, or give a chance to those who want to experience it for the first time?

yeah, no easy way to do this. you're going to piss off a lot of people no matter what.

It is given that the race is going to sell out every year. Why not lower the qualifying times, make it harder to get in and let it sell out to the best runners? If you are going to piss someone off, let it be a 4 hour guy, not a 2:30 guy.

If someone wants to give to a charity, I'm not going to stop them but they can do that anywhere.

1) Lower the qualifying times so that fast runners can get in.

2) Put a certain number of slots up for auction.

Good Ideas!

IllinoisMaster wrote:

1) Lower the qualifying times so that fast runners can get in.

2) Put a certain number of slots up for auction.

First off, they aren't going to shut out the 4 hour + marathoners because THEY are the ones that pay the bills. Your average 2:35 marathoner buys ZERO schwag at the stupid expo but the 4 hour fat lady buys jackets, mugs, socks, shirts, photographs etc. The corporate sponsors only care about the elites and the people that buy their stuff - and 2:30 guys buy nothing.

the 2:30 guy is too busy running to have a real job. ;-)

exactly right on the economics of the race! If i'm a local merchant, i'd say screw the 2:30 guy, the 4:00 hour guy brought his wife and kids and spent money everywhere, including, hopefully, my shop. Its just that Boston is going to have to really adjust to the reality of the numbers that they have to process.

This is what I see

Entrance fee: $200

Waiting List Fee :$50

Cancellation Fee: $20

Put pictures of my angry skinny little self in all the portapottis. That would relieve a great deal of tension. Add my picture to the toilet paper and they would feel cheery about all the relief they get before the race.

I think the solution is easy, let the fastest runners in each year and make Boston the "fastest marathon in the world."

Here's how.

1. Set a quota of entries for each age group based on the average number of participants within each age group over the past 5 years.

2. Open preliminary registration for 14 days.

3. After closing, accept the fastest times for each age group, inform them and complete the registration process.

Any questions?

Jan 1-7

Men 2:30

Women 2:50

Jan 8-15

Men 2:35

Women 2:55

Jan 8-14

Men 2:35

Women 2:55

Jan 16-21

Men 2:40

Women 3:00

Jan 22-31

Men 2:45

Women 3:05

Feb 1-7

Men 2:50

Women 3:10

Feb 8-14

Men 2:55

Women 3:15

Feb 14-21

Men 3:00

Women 3:20

Feb 22-28

Men 3:05

Women 3:25

March

Men 3:10

Women 3:30

Biased against older runner and woman

The need for tighter gualifying standards. And a provisional standard.

1) Tougher standards could be as fast as 2:30 to 2:45 for 29 and under men. Age grade that standard for the older runners.

Allow only this group to register during anytime once registration is open.

2) Provisional standards - Similar to today.

This group could only register after Jan 31.

This would allow all the faster runners to avoid the computer rush, but would still allow some slower runners into the race and still give the boast to the local economy.

They could also run the faster qualifiers as wave 1 and the secondary qualifiers as wave two. This all depends on the balance of the numbers.

Foreign travel exemption should be eliminated. Nothing fair about this. Charity runners should be limited and started in the final corral behind the provisional runners.

good article.

these types of ideas are less than ideal. People want to be able to celebrate that they qualified on the the day of the marathon they run.

I've run Boston 15 times. I am not going to be pissed if the BAA chooses to continue to go the direction the BAA has been going the last 20 years. However, I will stop running it.

It is their race and they can choose whatever direction they want to go with their event. I can choose to particpate or not. I'll miss it since it is has been a lot of fun over they years but I am not going to spend hours on my computer to register in future years.

I've run boston less times than you, but it was still a big deal to me to finally qualify and go run it. It gave me soemthing to shoot for and i enjoyed the journey getting there.

I won't go back, not because it totally sucks but because its simply not the race that i want to run anymore. it may not be my boston anymore, but it will always be someone's boston. just that someone will be different than it used to be.

It's the hobbyjogger Olympics, nobody here should give a crap.

With all due respect, stupid blog post. What the hell does this even mean?

They have long since moved from the position, the one position that kept them unique: the idea that you had to qualify. And they did so for one reason: cold, hard cash. And lets be simple and direct, and not answer real, pressing questions with Teflon coated PR doublespeak like Guy Morse did in the recent Boston Globe article: the economics of allowing all the non-qualifying charities and doctors and foreign tours in has allowed the non-profit BAA to get rich. Rich beyond their wildest dreams. And all they had to do was lose the stupid qualifying stuff, which they have, slowly but surely, inch by inch.

The vast majority of Boston entrants for the past 20+ years have had to qualify by time and still will for the foreseeable future. And the qualification wasn't even an issue until 40 years ago, so it's not like it's deeply woven into the history of the race.