If you meet these times, you can register and bypass the lottery:
2014 Qualifying Times
Qualifying Race Qualifying Time
Marathon 4:00:00
Half Marathon 1:52:55
10K 0:51:08
I believe it is capped at 2,000 qualifiers for the full & 1,500 for the half. Houston is hosting the USATF half marathon championship the day before the race. The marathon is on 1/19/14.
Is this a joke?
I was thinking about doing the half--whew, I'm glad I made the qualifications!
m runner wrote:
If you meet these times, you can register and bypass the lottery:
Marathon 4:00:00
Half Marathon 1:52:55
Lets not forget that this is Tex-ASS where everyone is overweight. So if you can run a 4h Marathon, you're like 1 in a million.
Qualifying times apply only to Houston-area races, and a few other TX races (Austin, Dallas, SA). This was done to give local runners a preference, as many locals grumbled that they were being shut out of *their own* marathon.
Lenny Leonard wrote:
Is this a joke?
4 hours was the ORIGINAL QUALIFYING TIME for Boston. 1970.
El Chapulin wrote:
Qualifying times apply only to Houston-area races, and a few other TX races (Austin, Dallas, SA). This was done to give local runners a preference, as many locals grumbled that they were being shut out of *their own* marathon.
The qualifying race must be USATF certified. That is the only restriction. I used my marathon time from Monumental in Indianapolis and it was automatically verified.
They say one of the reasons they do this is to help manage the flow of traffic at the finish. It beats having to enter a lottery to get a spot. If there were that many "fast" runners registering they would have shut the early entry system down by now. But for a race with a 13,000 cap (full) that has to resort to a lottery it is amazing that the early entry doesn't fill up faster.
