That's just some know-nothing commenter calling 3:03's elites. The article makes no mention of elites at that pace.
Still, though, this is pretty crazy. How does a pacer screw up that bad? And weren't their people doing, like, 2:50 and 2:55 and 2:57 pace right in front of the group that early in the race?
In a country where 70% of the population is overweight, 3:03 is Olympic caliber!
I was in the group following the 3:03 pacer. Around mile 1.5 in downtown Santa Rosa the streets were not clearly marked. No volunteers pointing the right way and no arrows. The lead group actually made the wrong turn as well. The difference, however, is that they realized the mistake and turned around pretty quickly. The 3:03 pacer told us that they were wrong and to continue following him. Some people tried to veer off but the pacer saw this and told them to continue following as well. About .45 miles later, the 3:03 pacer realized that we were definitely not on course and flipped around. Once we got back to the course (.87 miles later) the pacer tried to sprint to the front in order to get back on pace. No one followed since we didnt want to blow ourselves up on mile 2. He ended up bonking since I passed him on mile 18 on pace for a 3:09 marathon.
In the end, I ran 26.2 in 3:00:31 which would have gotten me by BQ but had to run an extra mile which inflated my time to 3:07:41. Definitely blame myself for not studying the course map wrong but when there are 50 people going one way and the pacer seemed as confident as he did, it was hard to peel off from the group....
Obese America wrote:
In a country where 70% of the population is overweight, 3:03 is Olympic caliber!
Olympic caliber is the same everywhere, there are minimum standards.
yikes, the mouth-breathers and bottom-feeders on that cesspool of a comments section make the LRC boards look like a classy joint.
It's a bit disingenuous for anyone to say "study the course".
It was a very tortured start, if started at 6 (dark) and not everyone had the time or inclination to recon the race and even If done dozens if not hundreds went the wrong way, including myself, so most people wd think no I am wrong and these hundred guys in front of me are correct.
Very unfortunate and I know srm prides itself on getting people to bq, but I am just one of many that ran well out of the way and missed it.
If anyone is curious, the course is nice, generally flat, little crowd support, but a nice, perfect temperature race.
Why are people blaming the pacers? Have you ever met race pacers, especially those capable of pacing a 3 hour group? Usually its some young guy who was begged into the position last minute because there aren't that many 2:40 range runners willing to run a 3 hour marathon for free. Once I used a 2:46 pacer (meant for women. I was hoping to PR and luckily held on) and he took the whole group out at a 2:40 pace for the first 10K. Every female blew up. Pacers have problems in every marathon. This is not new. The blame should lie in the race director for not having the course marked clearly. Expecting out of owners to "study the map" for a 26.2 mile race is silly. Why weren't there volunteers blocking the wrong way, or cheap barricades? The race director is clearly to blame. This is race organization 101.