"NYRR said you lose half your money if you click your watch at the end". Was she joking?

stryker drilling wrote:

I understand that I probably need a watch for the first couple miles of a marathon, but no other race distance, and don't understand why an elite would need a watch for any race distance.

If you click your watch at each mile, your watch will display the last mile split for you. This is very useful. She has only run one marathon outdoors (in 2:55) and one on an indoor track (to earn $6000) in 2:44. Her coach told her she could run 2:31. Her best results this year were a 32:34 and 32:09 track 10ks and a recent 54:20. 2:30 is about 5:43 pace. She really had no idea what she might do, although if you listen to the interview (it IS LONG) you will get the gist that she seemed to believe 2:30-31-32 was likely.

Just like every marathoner, since it is FAR FROM your VO2max pace, it is hard to feel the difference between say 5:30 and 5:43. It is also hard to do that math in your head, once you are more than three miles in. What is your 12-mile split for 5:43 pace? Quick!

Well, 12 x 5 = 60:00 and 12 X :43 = 9:00 minus 12 X :02 = :24; so 9:00 minus :24 is ... Ummm ... 8:36 ...

What was the original sum? Meanwhile, you have drifted 10 seconds slower due to inattention. Have you ever run a 2:29 marathon? I have, and I needed to see my watch along the way to know that I was in the ballpark. It didn't really make me go slower or faster, just told me how fast I WAS going.

The other thing is that with a watch it is much easier to see (at 20 miles) if you are likely to break 2:35, or 2:30, or 2:25, or 2:20 for women. I would say the same goes for men for 2:20, 2:15, 2:12, and 2:10. Not sure if they have a big clock at every mile, but even if they did, the aforementioned would make it hard for that to be very useful.

I think it would be hard to be 7 miles out and try to average your first 19 miles and then try to predict if you can hold that pace and what that would yield for you, and I am really good at math.

they time the race for you wrote:

Why would you even need to split your watch when you finish? They're gonna tell you your finishing time and you can just subtract to find the last mile (assuming you split it the mile before).

She would not need to see it, she even said she DID NOT KNOW HER LAST MILE SPLIT. The girls in the interview asked her what her last mile was, because she picked a bunch of people off (apparently in the last 3 miles or so) and she said she didn't know, because they don't want you to click your watch at the finish.

Got it?

Why don't these folks wear hobby jogger gamins like the rest of us?

Not perfect on some of these courses, but if you define overall average on one of the screens you can get a pretty close feel for what you are running.

Are you allowed to grab your junk and gobble gobble MFers without risking your prize money at a nyrr race?

Victah Sailer gets totally pissed off if you smile at him during the race, which means he'd blacklist Eliud Kipchoge with his cheesy grin.

For prize money you don't sign a contract in advance but they do sometimes give caveats at the technical meeting. I only got a handful of appearance fees and a few of them did have it written in that if you stopped your watch at the tape you would get a 50% cut in the fee. I don't recall if this was in the NYRR contract or not. Also you often get cuts if you DNF or if you place below a certain spot or time. Also at a non-NYRR race the director did tell us that he wouldn't pay anyone who stopped their watch crossing the finish line and that they would never bring you back either. So if they told it to her as a joke it was a poor one.

Rule or joke? Could someone from LRC reach out to NYRR to get an official answer?

Best finish photo ever?

Dixon don't need no stinking watch.

http://www.runnerstribe.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/RodDixon.jpg

What do they do after withholding prize money? Do they donate it to charity?

In Berlin they say it so they can use the photos and footage of the potentially socially inept African that will likely win. They know how hard it is to get the general public to buy in to some of the zero personality Africans so drill it in. Same would go for NY and I call bs on a 50% cut, just a stern "threat" to drive the point home. Either way, who wants a photo of themselves stopping their watch, just do it so you don't look like a tool.

Stopping the watch at the line does not make for a good photo and it does enter my mind at the finish of big races though I'm deep in the field.

But, who wants to see such contrived victory celebrations? Basically they are asking for every winner to pose the same exact same way when crossing the line. That is boring. Heck, even the NFL (No Fun League) loosened the rules on how players can celebrate touchdowns.

Speaking of Strava, I had to run 400m past the finish line in NYC to get 26.2 miles's. Lost GPS signal on that mile 15 bridge

carnage behind him wrote:

Best finish photo ever?

Dixon don't need no stinking watch.

and still, is that Dixon was an arrogant, greedy pompous jacka*s more intent on his personal publicity than turning around to warmly welcome and congratulate Geoff Smith, who made the race, and would have won easily had he not cramped badly the last few miles.

I seriously don't care for those actions in people, and would rather see runners warmly congratulate their competitors.

Track Times Matter wrote:

Just like every marathoner, since it is FAR FROM your VO2max pace, it is hard to feel the difference between say 5:30 and 5:43. It is also hard to do that math in your head, once you are more than three miles in. What is your 12-mile split for 5:43 pace? Quick!

Well, 12 x 5 = 60:00 and 12 X :43 = 9:00 minus 12 X :02 = :24; so 9:00 minus :24 is ... Ummm ... 8:36 ...

Just because I find it interesting that people have different ways of doing math in their heads, I thought I'd share how I thought about your question.

6 minute pace is 72

less 12 x 1/4 = 3minutes for 15 seconds (quarter minute) times twelve

less a further 12 x 2 seconds

72:00 - 3:00 - 24 = 68:36

For me, breaking down into smaller chunks is easier while running.