Grandma’s Marathon LiveStream WDIO

this thread is killing me... people saying it shouldn't be a legal course? Probably the same people who say CIM isn't fair and same ones who complain about the vaporflys! Run both and see what you think. Grandmas has plenty of uphill in it and for goodness sake gets good weather 1 out of every 4 years.... it's actually slightly easier than CIM but you hit some rollers late as compared to pancake at CIM..... and I'm pretty sure has slightly LESS net downhill. Stop bellyachin and if you want to hit the standard get to training!

The more the merrier for the marathon qualifier. It's a road race, not a track event, so who really cares if there are more people shuffling along at the back end of the race? I can't recall any marathon being crowded in the elite race. The event is realistically for a handful of elites and a bunch of hobby joggers anyhow. If you look at the qualification standard, there is about a 10% difference between the top qualifier and the bottom qualifier. If you were to apply that standard to track events, you would have to let in 1:53 800 runners, 3:53 1500 runners and 14:20 5000 meter runners. The marathon qualification is the weakest and easiest to achieve of any of the disciplines, so when someone brags about running a marathon qualifier, take it with a grain of salt.

I'm not going to say that the OTQ for a marathon is going to be near the strength of the track fields, but you are a ways off the time equivalent. For men a 2:18:58 gets you 1007 pts on the IAAF scoring table. That equates to 1:50, 3:47, 13:57, 29:23.

Mr. Slippyfist wrote:

I'm not going to say that the OTQ for a marathon is going to be near the strength of the track fields, but you are a ways off the time equivalent. For men a 2:18:58 gets you 1007 pts on the IAAF scoring table. That equates to 1:50, 3:47, 13:57, 29:23.

Thx you for that, great perspective...

I thinks people are missing the primary point of why standards are drafted. The main goal of the standards are to create a field for the event. In track, the field is way more limited by space then a road race. A secondary goal in the trials is picking the team. But it’s in that order, create the field to race first, then the field picks the team by performing.

Question for the group at large: are either the full Grandmother's or the Garry B half marathon record eligible? Could one set a state age group record on the courses, for example?

Just going to throw a few results out there:

Nick Caprario

2018 Grandma's 2:18:03

2018 CIM 2:16:17

2019 Grandma's 2:16:01

Obviously some variation in fitness would impact times but it would appear to me that Saturday's weather didn't impact the results enough to make a huge difference in comparison to CIM.

According to Strava:

Grandma's: 500ish ft. of climbing, 100ish ft. net drop start to finish

CIM: 800ish ft. of climbing, 350ish ft. net drop start to finish

Boston: 1000ish ft. of climbing, 400ish ft. net drop start to finish

I honestly think there is enough climbing with each of these courses to keep things pretty fair. Sure, a tailwind helps on years you get one but it still got a touch warm for Grandma's this year. I think each of these courses have seen their fair share of bad weather days. I think the formula is right about how much drop is too much. None of these courses are truly downhill start to finish. You have some hills mixed in still. Some days the courses will run faster than a loop flat course and other days slower. I think maybe, maybe, you see marginal gains on a day like this for people who barely qualify but I could care less. They put in the work and are going to be motivated to train for and run a faster marathon in the future.

If it had been a head wind and slow times you'd be calling for the mercy rule and looking for ways around it.

crumpet + 1

Congratulations!