Will the ATC go bankrupt? How many trials qualifiers are there now? 72 women break 2:45, 37 guys break 2:19 at CIM?

Standard should be 2:05 and 2:22

I've run CIM around 10 times between the '80's and '90's, along with quite a few other marathons. While it's a net downhill course, and point to point I wouldn't rank it any higher than Chicago on the speed scale (Compare '17, '18 CIM times vs same runners @ '19 Chicago). For those who have been around a while they can attest that conditions the past 3 years have been unusually awesome as compared to some previous versions. The course does have a 300? ft net drop, But there are plenty of rolling hills in the first half of the race. I'd bet that 1/3 of the net drop all occurs in the first 1300m of the race, before runners head up a 50ft climb to the mile mark. The past 2 years the race has been the US Championship event and they caught perfect conditions. This year Everyone who didn't have an OTQ had this earmarked as their attempt. It also helped a LOT that race organizers (Sacramento Running Association) provided 2-3 pacers for the women trying to run 2:44, and the men trying to run 2:18. As trials chasers ran by at 10k there was a massive group of men and women tucked in behind said pacers. Add another perfect weather day and you had another ridiculous number of OTQ's. With all of this being said, most Were wearing THE shoes.

Jambo Cabao wrote:

Standard should be 2:05 and 2:22

I agree, they should be lowered significantly. Perhaps not that low. Try 2:12 and 2:27-8 or so.

Congratulations to everyone who qualified!

Didn't there use to be a marathon in Texas like Austin or something where a ton of people used to go to try to qualify? How do the numbers and percentage of qualifiers at CIM compare?

The standards will obviously have to go up a lot. I know they try to keep the women’s standard a bit slower than standard gender-grading would tell you, but it’s so out of whack right now with the number of women qualifying.

The Olympic Trials should be something that about 50 people run. Adjust to that standard for both genders. Of course, that might not even be good enough in 4 years with the shoes arm race going on.

rojo wrote:

Today was the last great chance to qualify for the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trails as the downhill (34 feet which is worth at least a minute) and point to point Cal International Marathon was run.

How do you figure 34 feet of downhill is worth a minute? That's less than a foot and a half per mile or approximately .02%

I'm not disagreeing, just curious how you figured that out.

Editor's note: It was a typo. It's 340 ft downhill.

Help me out with this one wrote:

rojo wrote:

Today was the last great chance to qualify for the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trails as the downhill (34 feet which is worth at least a minute) and point to point Cal International Marathon was run.

How do you figure 34 feet of downhill is worth a minute? That's less than a foot and a half per mile or approximately .02%

I'm not disagreeing, just curious how you figured that out.

It's 340 ft. Probably more than a minute.

TRC has become TMC.

Also, all of these Olympic qualifiers become known as Olympians!

As in "she's an Olympian!"

David S wrote:

Congratulations to everyone who qualified!

Didn't there use to be a marathon in Texas like Austin or something where a ton of people used to go to try to qualify? How do the numbers and percentage of qualifiers at CIM compare?

Do you mean Jacksonville?

rojo wrote:

Today was the last great chance to qualify for the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trails as the downhill (34 feet which is worth at least a minute) and point to point Cal International Marathon was run.

With the new shoes and the 2:19/2:45 standards, the number of qualifiers was already at an all-time and then 2019 CIM happened. I just looked at the results. 72 women and 37 guys broke the 2:45 and 2:19 standards.

Does anyone know how many of them were Americans that hadn't previously done it?

Results here:

https://www.athlinks.com/event/3241/results/Event/891887/Course/1723361/Division/1555004/Results

Houston (in six weeks) is the final chance. Seth DeMoor said the other day that there will be a number of guys are forming a group running at 5:18 pace. So, there will probably be some more qualifiers.

The olympic marathon standards are far too easy. (Especially for women) Women are not 1 minute per mile slower than men.

2:16.00 and 2:34:00 seems reasonable. It still puts plenty of runners in the field. Any runner slower than this has no mathematic shot.

Where in your post did you provide any evidence that ATC is going bankrupt? What am I missing?

Rojo, isn’t Houston the last great chance? I feel like the Houston Marathon doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Very fast, legitimate course.

Blah, blah, blah, I count CIM as my marathon PR even though it is an aided course and I'm defensive when people say it is fast due to the net downhill, waaah, waaah

results show that it's much more difficult for men to qualify. There are more competitive male runners but still more females who make it. The reason is that everywhere in America (also Boston BQ) they set ridiculously low targets for female athletes. It must be because of that Lydiard book where he wrote something like that women are not capable of doing serious training. When the standard is 2:19 for men, it should be 2:34 for women. 15 minutes difference is acceptable, not more.

TimetoChangeStandards wrote:

The olympic marathon standards are far too easy. (Especially for women) Women are not 1 minute per mile slower than men.

2:16.00 and 2:34:00 seems reasonable. It still puts plenty of runners in the field. Any runner slower than this has no mathematic shot.

The Olympic marathon standards are 2:11:30 and 2:29:30. Maybe you are talking about the Trials standards.

TimetoChangeStandards wrote:

The olympic marathon standards are far too easy. (Especially for women) Women are not 1 minute per mile slower than men.

2:16.00 and 2:34:00 seems reasonable. It still puts plenty of runners in the field. Any runner slower than this has no mathematic shot.

Well, IAAF standards are 2:11:30 and 2:29:30. Even if you keep men OTQ at 2:19, women OTQ should be lowered to 2:38.

For 2:16 it should be 2:34.40.

ATC go bankrupt? Not until after LRC does…