Danny Mercado Sighting OT Marathon Qualifier

Viva la Raza. Go Ducks!

Neat

Cool. It's good to see another Duck running years after college. Oregon must have dozens of post-collegiate kids still running after graduation. It's good to see kids not getting burned out at college, but instead to still love the sport enough to continue on.

are those splits legit? why would he run 5:10s for the first part of the race and then drop 4:45s to close the last 10K? why not just run even 4:50-4:55 miles and come in well under the standard?

either way, good work & congrats!

Was he just below the fine line of being sponsored by Nike or maybe even Brooks? He ran right up there in college with guys who are running for Nike now.

His linkedin says he is manager in training at a burger joint. How much faster did he have to run to run for a living?

The timing mat was supposed to be at 6.9 miles, but it was actually about a quarter mile later. So add about a minute to the last 10k splits. He ran it pretty even.

I have a question, and not trying to put down Mercado, I'm just asking for my own reference, is that course legal for qualifying for the Trials? The race website says it has "nearly 350 feet of net elevation loss", but for USATF standards, they say maximum allowed elevation loss is 3.25m/km (350ft would be 5.06m/km). 5.06 is way over 3.25.

I've been told the 3.25 number exists only to allow the Boston Marathon to count because Boston has 3.47m/km elevation loss.

Or am I converting my English and metric standards incorrectly?

Race site: http://thephoenixmarathon.com/plan-your-race/half-marathon/

USATF: http://www.usatf.org/Sports/Road-Running/OlympicTeamTrials/2016QualifyingStandards.aspx

Wow that's cutting it close. Had to be booking it at the end.

I recall looking up this very info and it is actually quite generous, but still only calcs out to about 225ft of allowable drop. (3.25m/km) X (21.1km) X 3.28ft/m) = ~225, so yes, you are correct.

very generous, but likely this did not count. nonetheless, no reason danny can't go to something like RnR san jose or las vegas and nail a sub 65 without much problem, he's a talented young man.

all certified course info is on the USATF website. below is a link to all the courses in Arizona. drop for this course is 2.28m/km according to list. so not a record-eligible course, but OK for trials qualifying is the way i understand it?

http://www.usatf.org/events/courses/search/searchResults.asp?embed=&courseID=&distance=&distanceUnits=&distanceComparison=&city=&state=AZ&courseName=&courseStatus=A&courseType=R&drop=&dropComparison=&separation=&separationComparison=&certificationYear=&lastName=&format=view&submit=Search

i actually didn't know that a drop of 3.25m/km was allowed for trials qualifiers, i just figured only record-eligible course were considered legit (1.0m/km or less). damn.

It's drops about 160 feet from start to finish. Not sure why the website says 350. Danny's run was really solid, into a headwind for a good portion of it.

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Pringles wrote:

His linkedin says he is manager in training at a burger joint. How much faster did he have to run to run for a living?

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bad as naomi russell wrote:

all certified course info is on the USATF website. below is a link to all the courses in Arizona. drop for this course is 2.28m/km according to list. so not a record-eligible course, but OK for trials qualifying is the way i understand it?

http://www.usatf.org/events/courses/search/searchResults.asp?embed=&courseID=&distance=&distanceUnits=&distanceComparison=&city=&state=AZ&courseName=&courseStatus=A&courseType=R&drop=&dropComparison=&separation=&separationComparison=&certificationYear=&lastName=&format=view&submit=Search

i actually didn't know that a drop of 3.25m/km was allowed for trials qualifiers, i just figured only record-eligible course were considered legit (1.0m/km or less). damn.

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Sorry different course than the one last year. It was OT qualifying legit last year. My bad

That's great, nobody cares.

Thanks

thanks for posting, as I actually was following this thread with some interest.

It was the same exact course as 2014. I would guess they exaggerate the elevation drop to attract runners from Utah who are used to downhill courses. They do the same thing with the full 'thon. It drops 800 feet, but the website says "close to 1000"

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Same Course wrote:

It was the same exact course as 2014. I would guess they exaggerate the elevation drop to attract runners from Utah who are used to downhill courses. They do the same thing with the full 'thon. It drops 800 feet, but the website says "close to 1000"

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