NY Times article about sub-elite runners

xenonscreams wrote:

I thought it was probably worth mentioning that a lot of elite runners (going by these cutoffs) also have full-time jobs.

Pretty sure the people mentioned in the article (Rogers, Shorter) are "elite" by ANY cutoff...

This was pretty funny:

"([Rogers] also had his car towed while he was winning the 1976 New York City Marathon, and Fred Lebow, then the race director, took care of the $90 fee to get it back.)"

Yeah but was a historical look at our "glory days." No mention of current elites who work full-time.

I classify as sub-elite?!? LOL. Whatever.

Anyways, I think the increase of prize money has discouraged the non-prize money winners from competing. In 1983 when 83 people broke 2:20 in NYC, almost none of them were getting paid to run and almost all probably had full-time jobs. But now, runners at that level are working minimal part-time jobs and trying to make what they can through running, which is fine, but it discourages the ones with full-time jobs, making them think they can't compete. The great part about distance running is it is not very time-consuming to become elite compared to other sports.

xenonscreams wrote:

Yeah but was a historical look at our "glory days." No mention of current elites who work full-time.

I don't know how many of todays work full-time, but Jimmy Grabow (2:12 debut at the trials) is one of them.

Sub-elite ain't what it used to be. The times in this article wouldn't have even been feared in most neighborhoods30 years ago.

Wow Unbelievable wrote:

Sub-elite ain't what it used to be. The times in this article wouldn't have even been feared in most neighborhoods30 years ago.

You don't "fear" sub-elite times.

"Seeing Geoffrey Mutai in the line at the Porta Potty is your one brush with greatness. Some people would prefer a more glamorous place, but I’ll take what I can get"

you think the "majority of active users" on letsrun run 80+ miles a week and are 2:20-2:35 marathoners?

seriously?

lol way to bump a ridiculously old thread. How far back did you have to dig to find this? How bored are you?

I actually don't think that's an unrealistic expectation if you include masters runners who once ran that much/that fast, but maybe it's just because a lot of people pretend to be fast/a lot of runners outside of that range don't speak up about their times.