Lawrence Cherono beat less than 70 men to win the Boston Marathon, Steven VanGampleare beat more than 7k to win the open race

Something else you can do that would be truly interesting is contacting as many members of the women's elite field and women who finished as the top females from the mass start as possible and asking them what they think about the issue, and doing the same with the male elite field and top sub-elite men, and posting those comments in an article. That would definitely be a using your megaphone to make an interesting contribution to this discussion--providing a broad perspective from parties actually affected, some of whose voices we haven't heard yet.

Not An Expert wrote:

rojo wrote:

The reason why only did Steven is mainly because he was the only one impacted by the BAA's decision to separate the elites from the masses. We've been focused on the 2 minute start controversy.

Did LetsRun similarly focus on the sub-elite women who were missing out on their chance to compete with the elites when a women's start was added 15 years ago, and write similar articles about the "open women's champion" any time during the last 15 when you had that opportunity?

No. The separate women's start was done to promote women's running. The women who didn't make the elite cut weren't negatively affected and actually some women choose to run in the open field so they have more people to run with. There was no legitimate reason to separate the men's start.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

Creighton coach. wrote:

Honestly. He sounds like an entitled jerk.

Enjoy your 15 mins dude. No one will know who you are next year.

This. Mediocre in college (article says 39th or so as his best), now posts a solid (but not elite) time with Vaporfly's and thinks he is the big deal.

Also he is lucky that he works in Colorado Springs, one of the best training locations in the US. Super high mileage guy (all his runs are on Strava for the past 6 years or so), so he is probably pretty close to his genetic limits by now, I doubt he will even break 2:14.

You sound bitter, bros.

Wow. 6 min PR! Just out of interest does anyone know what shoes he was wearing?

Not An Expert wrote:

Something else you can do that would be truly interesting is contacting as many members of the women's elite field and women who finished as the top females from the mass start as possible and asking them what they think about the issue, and doing the same with the male elite field and top sub-elite men, and posting those comments in an article. That would definitely be a using your megaphone to make an interesting contribution to this discussion--providing a broad perspective from parties actually affected, some of whose voices we haven't heard yet.

I'm guessing the Brojos wrote this article hoping to influence the BAA to reverse their decision and eliminate the 2 minute gap next year. I support that reasoning. This separate start is not the biggest issue in the world, but if they want to highlight it with one interesting interview, then go for it.

Your objections are tiring, missing the point, and unproductive. Not everything is about you. This issue frankly doesn't affect you, or elite men, or sub-elite women. It doesn't require 'broad perspectives' from every demographic.

Where? wrote:

broken arrow wrote:

Very nice story, I am happy for this guy, great race. I think in the future Boston should let any runner with a time under 2:30 start with the elites, there will still be relatively few runners there and will allow runners who have run in the low to mid 220s a chance to make a jump to the next level.

It is even more impressive that he ran 2:18 without a group to run with the last 11 miles or so.

Sounds good, until you think of the 2’30’15 seconds guy who still has to lead out the masses and miss his chance to jump to the next level.

Totally agree with broken arrow. The reality is that people from the mass start for both men and women placed in the top-30. There are scenarios where people still crack the top-15 in the future. Boston is a huge race with money + resources. Put a standard out there like 2:25 and 2:50. That gives people a chance to run OTQs and get better. So what about the 2:25:01 and 2:50:01 runners? If you make the standard fair and known, it gives those runners a standard to chase to get into those fields. The reality is that they made this change super late in the game and this guy gutted out a super impressive marathon running a lot of solo miles. I think it would play out no different from Chicago's American Development Corral or NYC's sub elite start. You can't complain because the standards are published. Boston attracts deeper fields than those two races, it makes sense they might have tighter standards. What makes no sense to me is that people on the men's/women's side from the mass start still ran OTQs and didn't run the same race as their real competitors.

If you bump the women's time to 2:50ish, you can also probably start the men with the masses again. It never felt like a gender equality issue in the way they messaged the issue. I listened to a sub elite woman on the Citius Mag Pod talk about how the issue for her was that the women's elite field was too small. Put a standard out there a little slower than the Trials and give people a chance to get it. This feels easy.

As a woman cut off from the elite start, I am well aware of the fact that I had people to run with the whole way. Reading Steven’s interview (while he definitely had a much different experience), he wasn’t running alone the whole race.

I think there’s still plenty of benefits to being in the elite start. I was getting stepped on the first 5 miles and people that went out too fast were walking through the water stops. The elite start still would’ve afforded me an easier start, not dealing with the masses in the village, and in my case cooler temperatures.

I understand the benefits of me racing in the mass start, and agree with the baa being strict to their time qualifiers. At the end of the day, you can’t make everyone happy.

If you bump the women's time to 2:50ish, you can also probably start the men with the masses again. It never felt like a gender equality issue in the way they messaged the issue. I listened to a sub elite woman on the Citius Mag Pod talk about how the issue for her was that the women's elite field was too small. Put a standard out there a little slower than the Trials and give people a chance to get it. This feels easy.

THIS. Then the woman can make their own decision to do the elite start or not, but make them declare and say they agree they won’t get prize money (this has been my experience in other races when I declined the elite start). This is definitely the issue. It’s so frustrating when these elite fields are so small and you can’t get into them, and the guys don’t experience this because of the lack of separate elite start. I think they could easily do a separate tent/port a potty/bus or something for these runners if they can’t include them with the actual elites (which I understand not hitting sub 2:45 doesn’t make me elite standard at Boston :) )

Well he got his two minutes of fame and had a good race (where he wasn’t running completely alone).

Lol the woman’s world record holder in her prime winning the Boston’s open start would then be your equivalent for the women. Good analogy. Really helps with sexism. This frame of mind is insanely frustrating in the media, and having a running website you really shouldn’t be saying that. The local turkey trot has a male AND female winner.

ACTUALLY, yes you should recognize their accomplishments the same. Biological differences just means equal treatment doesn’t always mean the same exact things for both (ie recognizing the elite women running the Boston marathon the same as the men required a 28 min head start, access to health care requires different doctors)

...in the article on SV, nowhere does it mention his finish time or place. These are key details critical to the story that were simply not included. Likewise, I find that preview articles on LR often lack key details - such as the date/time of the relevant event - perhaps because those writing are so ‘in the bubble’ they might not realize folks need to be told exactly when an event is happening, without having to go search around the internet for more info. Bottom line: LR articles are great but would be better if they didn’t leave out key information

Good assessment.

@ Not An Expert: This is honestly one of the best posts I’ve ever seen on letsrun. Thank you.

RoJo, you wrote an article about Steven VanGampleare, and crowned him with the unofficial title of “men’s open champion”. That’s great, but I think that the winner of the women’s open race, Mia Behm, deserves the same recognition and chance to be in the spotlight.

Congratulations on a great race Stephen!

I think his Creighton career would have been pretty impressive had the situation been handled differently. He was part of a group of guys that bought into training hard without much reward in a program that was not funded well.

Some feedback for LR... wrote:

...in the article on SV, nowhere does it mention his finish time or place. These are key details critical to the story that were simply not included. Likewise, I find that preview articles on LR often lack key details - such as the date/time of the relevant event - perhaps because those writing are so ‘in the bubble’ they might not realize folks need to be told exactly when an event is happening, without having to go search around the internet for more info. Bottom line: LR articles are great but would be better if they didn’t leave out key information

"VanGampleare did more than 'deal with it': on Monday, he ran the best marathon of his life, slashing almost six minutes off his personal best to run 2:18:40 and qualify for next year’s Olympic Trials. He finished 26th overall, but first among runners from Wave 1, earning him an unofficial title in the process: 2019 Boston Marathon Open Division champion."

Please read the article carefully next time.

I was posting what Jon posted above. Jon does mention the finishing time and place:

https://imgur.com/a/OKODm0Q

The feedback on putting the date of races we will incorporate.

wejo wrote:

I was posting what Jon posted above. Jon does mention the finishing time and place:

https://imgur.com/a/OKODm0Q

The feedback on putting the date of races we will incorporate.

Thanks for the response and apologies Jon for missing it. Again love the content, keep up the great work

Maybe a little less writing and a little more running and you'll be faster. I cringe thinking about the unhinged emails you send to your supervisor passive aggressively complaining about everything.

A 2:30:15 guy needs to be in wave behind.... a guy who’s capable of 2:19 deserves a shot to start fast.

1:15 and 1:09 halves are very different beasts. 1:15 is jogging compared to 1:09.

But to be completely honest I think they should all start together maybe with just a few seconds separation like they did in the past screw the prize money more importantly I also think the women should probably run with the man I think it’s kind of silly if you look at the Boston female race other than the leaders most of those women run solo the whole race which is just silly you have a bunch of low to 2:20 runners and then a bunch of 246 runners... that’s a 16 minute spread in ability. It’s not -but it’s almost a minute a mile for arguments sake that’s a totally different Runner.

B. Rodgers made the jump from 2:19:34 (14th) in 1974 ...to 2:09:55 (1st; the first American to ever break 2:10:00, setting the USA and course records) in 1975.