NYC Marathon NO BAGGAGE!!!

Sub-elites

Sub-Elite

The ING New York City Marathon 2011 is offering an enhanced start experience for the most competitive non-professional entrants. The benefits of the program include dedicated transportation to the start*, a special staging area, and a clear starting position at the front of the orange start.

Qualifying times for consideration for inclusion in this program are:

Men: 2:35 marathon or 1:12 half-marathon

Women: 3:05 marathon or 1:27 half-marathon

If you have run a qualifying time since January 1, 2010 and are interested in applying for this program, please contact Jonni Lord at

jlord@nyrr.org

no later than October 4, 2011. Please include your Marathon entry number and the link to the website where your results can be verified.

Please note that submitting a qualifying time does not guarantee acceptance; due to space limitations, the program is limited to the 50 fastest male and 50 fastest female runners who have achieved the minimum qualifying times listed above.

*All sub-elites MUST take the sub-elite bus to the start from midtown Manhattan on race morning.

Holy Smokes, would have never seen that. Thank you Randy.

Whether you think it's a big deal or not, this is about a monopolistic entity imposing unfair rules on the little guy. Please support the following petition to bring back the baggage check. NYRR has gone too far. It's now a matter of principle. Runners got a raw deal, NYRR waited for 45,000+ to pay with the expectation that there would be a simple service like baggage check... then they make this announcement. Bad business.. they should give everyone the option to get some money back. I say they need to make good on the initial expectation.

http://www.change.org/petitions/new-york-road-runners-bring-back-the-baggage-check#

Huge petition going on! Insane.

New York Road Runners: Bring back the baggage check! - 750 signatures

Boy Scouts: Stop the secrecy! Allow your Board to VOTE to end the ban on gay scouts and leaders - 148,000 signatures

JerseyTrash wrote:

4 of those races are trails, one is new, and BK is 8.5 loops of prospect park - no thanks. Pretty much going to have a to get a Hotel and I don't consider MD or MA local wrt NYC.

For what it's worth, while the North Central and Bucks County marathons are technically "trails", they are flat hard packed bicycle trails and at least as fast as the NYCM course.

I know, I know... we have to start somewhere. I thought I would try to leverage the LR community but I keep forgetting everyone here always wants to do the opposite of makes sense.

Making it so every single runner will need family or friend support at the finish should alleviate congestion and traffic.

What a mess they are going to make!

I ran this marathon a long time ago--1991--and I've thought on and off about running it again, but first the ever increasing price tag put me off, and now this change after everyone's paid the $260 to run this race? No thanks!

I have a feeling that neither NYRR nor the city have planned this out well and they'll cause more problems than they'll solve with this policy.

Either way the process seems pretty bad.

This just convinces me to keep with my goal of never running a marathon.

I wonder what alternatives were on the table before they decided to get rid of it altogether.

From the NY Times article on why the NYRR got rid of the bag drop.

To eliminate what the (NY)Road Runners called “overwhelmingly the No. 1 complaint of our runners for years,” the bag drop was scrapped.

Hmmmmm. I wonder what the new No. 1 complaint will be now?

Brilliant opportunity for Southwest Airlines - "your bags fly free to the finish line"

"for a small fee we'll allow you full access to Fred Lebow's gravesite so you can hear him spinning in it."

haaaa

I, for one, cannot wait to use a "call home" station already used by a few hundred sweaty, stinky runners. Yum!

katie p wrote:

I, for one, cannot wait to use a "call home" station already used by a few hundred sweaty, stinky runners. Yum!

There are going to be hundreds of people wandering around central park trying to figure out how to get to the west side, with their family members lined up to use these phones trying to find them.

That's a great way to deal with complaints - just get rid it.

I doubt that that was the #1 compliant, but I guess now it would be the wait at Ft Wadswroth, so mabye they should just start the race in CP.

Then they won't have to worry a bout bagage transport!

What about emotional baggage? Do I have to carry that around with me?

I almost never check bags, but I agree this is BS. This will be my first NYCM and my last. I just want to run it to say I did, then I'm done.

Basically they are asking us to 1) pay to travel with extra weight which certainly can become expensive 2) throw away our warm up clothes (ok "donate" them) - again throw away money 3) run with extra crap that we need at the end - ID, cash, keys, possibly a phone. I can run with this crap, but will cost more minutes and be a PITA to run with.

How many people out of 45K will leave a phone or wallet at the start accidentally? 1% (450)? I'm really questioning what I've gotten myself into.