Am I the only one to notice this? Falmouth gets a new race director, prize money gets SLASHED. what a shame if true! and they apparently have Larry Barthlow as elite athlete coordinator, perhaps that explains the elite status going down?
Am I the only one to notice this? Falmouth gets a new race director, prize money gets SLASHED. what a shame if true! and they apparently have Larry Barthlow as elite athlete coordinator, perhaps that explains the elite status going down?
I've always noticed how races that Barthlow works with eventually lose their prize money status. The guy is a cancer.
So the American prize money only is gone then? This was great for American distance runners to walk away with a good chunk of change. Please say it ain't so.....
Any link to what it used to be?
Anyone know what the elite fields are looking like? Heard of only a couple so far that are running.
Anonymouse Cowherd wrote:
Am I the only one to notice this? Falmouth gets a new race director, prize money gets SLASHED. what a shame if true! and they apparently have Larry Barthlow as elite athlete coordinator, perhaps that explains the elite status going down?
http://www.falmouthroadrace.com/prize-money-
I think you can put it to Cigna no longer being the title sponsor.
The difference is there used to be open prize money similar to now but American prize money also and Americans could double dip. Real shame this.
Not only did prize money get sliced in half, elite housing is more difficult to attain. Falmouth only pays travel for people who finish in top 10 which is admirable but trying to get a flight and a hotel on the Cape is not cheap. As for prize $ being slashed in half, I mean if you are an American, you'll make 50% less at least. Last year Magdalena won 10K for the win and 10K for the US win. This year she'd make only $10k total. Those finishing lower than her would make greater than 50%less. They want top runners but Shalane or Ryan is going to be coming every year (or ever). As for the housing, with new out of town directors, maybe the locals aren't lining up like before for the opportunity to have an elite stay with them on the Cape for the weekend. Take a look at their twitter feed or FB status, they are promoting Rod Dixon, Meb, Joanie, Bill Rodgers, etc not exactly today's top runners.
chris solinsky will be running falmouth in a few weeks, he said on his twitter.
New Balance is the sponsor, but perhaps Jim Davis (New Balance CEO) has given too much of his money away to Romney and the Republican super-pacs ...
FWIW- I tweeted: @RunFalmouth Why no American prize money?
The response: The change allows us to increase the budget & actually bring in more top Americans to participate in the race. Good field this yr!
Under the "coordination" of Larry Barthlow, how long will it take for Falmouth to become "Beach to Beacon South" and void of elite American participation?
By Peter Gambaccini
Photo by Giancarlo Colombo/Photo Run
There's been no official announcement, but Chris Solinsky, who is one of America’s premier distance runners on the track but who was unable to compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, has Tweeted that he will do the Falmouth Road Race in Massachusetts on August 12. The race is just slightly longer than seven miles.
Solinsky, an Oregon Track Club member who was the first American to run under 27:00 for 10,000 meters on the track (26:59.60 in 2010), missed the Trials as he made slow progress after an operation to reattach a hamstring muscle. He Tweeted that he is “very excited to put the OTC singlet on again for the 1st time in 13 months.” But when he Tweets about going to Falmouth, he puts “race” in quotation marks, indicating in a previous Tweet that “it'll be more of a glorified tempo run as I will not be ready to fully compete, but can't wait!!”
Yesterday, Solinsky had Tweeted, “Finally had a good long run that felt comfortable. 2 hrs at 6 min pace.#progress feels good. Slow but sure grind back to being fit." On July 22, he Tweeted, "About to start my long run to finish off my first 100 mile week since getting my hamstring reattached, first in over 14 months."
Solinsky, who was a national champion in high school and at the University of Wisconsin and is the second fastest American at 5000 meters (12:55.53), had decided in early May, "I'm going to have to bag it this year and swallow the hard pill that it's not going to happen," that he would not be ready for the Olympic Trials even though "I was setting myself up to have a really legitimate chance to win a medal" at the London Olympics.
He is known for a determined and perhaps even overzealous work ethic, and that may have proved to be Solinsky's undoing. He acknowledged that in 2010, "I got a little bit greedy. I did 120 miles five weeks of that year and the rest were in the 100-mile range. I thought, 'If I double that, I'm going to get aerobically stronger.' So last year I did 12 or 13 weeks at 120 miles or more and none of the runs were very easy. I think my body kind of revolted."
Ultimately, his hamstring separated itself from his pelvic bone last summer and had to be reattached by titanium screws. The surgery was on September 16, the day that Galen Rupp smashed Solinsky's American 10,000-meter record.
Luke Puskedra is running this race as well.
seenontv wrote:
FWIW- I tweeted: @RunFalmouth Why no American prize money?
The response: The change allows us to increase the budget & actually bring in more top Americans to participate in the race. Good field this yr!
How are they going to bring in more top Americans if there is no money for them to win?
Pizzaguy wrote:
seenontv wrote:FWIW- I tweeted: @RunFalmouth Why no American prize money?
The response: The change allows us to increase the budget & actually bring in more top Americans to participate in the race. Good field this yr!
How are they going to bring in more top Americans if there is no money for them to win?
there is money for them to win, if they only get 6th they get a thousand dollars, pretty good for just doing something fun for a little over 30 minutes.
about as long as it took the Utica Boilermaker 15k. The same amount of time it took me to type this post. Barthlow should leave and take Dick Mattia with him.
Pizzaguy wrote:
seenontv wrote:FWIW- I tweeted: @RunFalmouth Why no American prize money?
The response: The change allows us to increase the budget & actually bring in more top Americans to participate in the race. Good field this yr!
How are they going to bring in more top Americans if there is no money for them to win?
IDK if this is what they mean, but they may be offering more guaranteed money up front by paying bigger appearance fees and paying less in prize money.
That is, the effect may be that they will have more top Americans showing up to earn appearance fees instead of 2nd or 3rd tier Ethiopians or Kenyans showing up to win prize money.
Speculationing wrote:
Pizzaguy wrote:How are they going to bring in more top Americans if there is no money for them to win?
IDK if this is what they mean, but they may be offering more guaranteed money up front by paying bigger appearance fees and paying less in prize money.
That is, the effect may be that they will have more top Americans showing up to earn appearance fees instead of 2nd or 3rd tier Ethiopians or Kenyans showing up to win prize money.
so like competitor, get a meb or ryan hall to win by over 3 minutes in a tempo run?
douglas burke wrote:
so like competitor, get a meb or ryan hall to win by over 3 minutes in a tempo run?
Sounds like getting a Solinsky to show up to do a tempo run and collect an appearance fee.