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

2:15 and 2:27 sounds more realistic for Americans.

Women's standard is just soft. 2:19 is significantly harder for a guy. 2:19 is a very solid college runner training hard for another few years at least. 2:45 is anyone who takes running seriously. There's people running 30 miles a week and 45 year olds getting the women's standard, not to mention it's basically 2:50 now with all the spring shoes. It should be closer to 2:35 just to make it as hard as the mens.

rojo wrote:

Today was the last great chance to qualify for the 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trails as the downhill (340 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

Rojo,

You are a smart, educated person who routinely uses science in understanding our sport- so why are you ignoring the amount gain and loss, and only looking at the net change? You cannot determine the effect of a course by looking only at the net change, and I think you must already understand this. CIM would be faster if were flat (as, for example, Indianapolis marathon is).

Trent Briney ran an 8 minute PR in the Olympic Trials to finish 4th place in 2008. He wouldn’t have qualified for the Olympic Trials this year.

Love all the people citing high seeds who placed in the single digits from a time when we had precious little depth beyond Kastor and Meb with respect to world class competition. I'm okay if a Jenny Spangler type is left out if it means we're sending 2:19-2:26 level women in all three team spots! What, did Spangler, Briney, and Moody parlay their OT placings into being competitive for the podium at NYC, London, Chicago, Berlin, or Boston if not at the Olympics? The story of some underdog gaining 15 seconds of fame is not a goal of this process.

All this mental masturbation for nothing. The US isn't competitive in the marathon. We wouldn't make the practice squad of many nations. Lighten up

Americans who can't break 2:10 wrote:

1. It's spelled "awful," Einstein.

Einstein - the well known native English speaking grammar nazi

All I know is I would have given my left one to have qualified for the T&F trials which I missed by 1/10th of a second. Admittedly I’m quite biased in my dismay that hundreds of runners can qualify for the marathon OT. Jealousy is an ugly thing I guess but the standards need to be tightened in ‘24.

The Atlanta Track Club runs the Peachtree Road Race which is a money factory. They are not hurting for money and they use it for the benefit of runners. A few years ago, the ATC chartered buses and paid hotel and entry fees for around 100 masters runners to go to the USATF Masters Track Nationals to get bragging rights of a team win. On an amusing note, they ran a 30s thrower in the 10k to get points (not many entries) and threw the whole meet schedule off by 20+min because the dude ran close to 70min. They are a great running organization and paying for trials qualifiers is really, really cool.

Donyiyo wrote:

2:15 and 2:27 sounds more realistic for Americans.

If we raise The Level of our Marathoners to that of our 800, Runners we will have LOTS of People Every Year going UNDER Men 2:11.30 Women 2:29.30

As for the shoes, With RARE EXCEPTIONS the only people running fast are Kenyans and Ethiopians, Uganda is rising as a Marathon Country, Bahrain is the Only Asian Country Improving (Most if Not all Immigrants from Kenya, Ethiopia and Morocco) Japan is good as usual (Way off of 2018) I go by the top 1000 All Time List which stops at 2:09.55, If you look at the list Most Countries Number of runners in the top 1000 are getting smaller

We have under 20 Men on the List in The Marathon, But WELL OVER 100 in the 800, 1500, and Steeple and the 5 and 10k are in the 90's Women have under 50, yet for example 259 in the Steeple.

USA is not on par with what it does in the other distance events,

;kjlk;jl;kj;lkj wrote:

Women's standard is just soft. 2:19 is significantly harder for a guy. 2:19 is a very solid college runner training hard for another few years at least. 2:45 is anyone who takes running seriously. There's people running 30 miles a week and 45 year olds getting the women's standard, not to mention it's basically 2:50 now with all the spring shoes. It should be closer to 2:35 just to make it as hard as the mens.

Or we could put the men at 2:22 & try growing the sport? 2:45 for women has been very good for women's distance running. There's a new story out every day about someone who qualified for the Trials.

Okay, so what's the proof that it "grows the sport" and makes the US more competitive internationally?

This thread is TLDR with all the typical LR b!tch slapping going on. So how many are in now? How much is ATC forking over?

As for Trials standards, these have always partly about the everyman/woman runner with a dream. They used to just take the top 100. But under 2:18:00 and 2:40:00 would be pretty good standards and you'd probably get 100-150 qualifiers.

since we have the nike bounce shoe problem.. make the times 4% more difficult. would be about 2:40 for women., 2:16 for men

Have you seen all of the articles that have come out since CIM? A lot of them are detailing people who barely qualified. People who are holding down full-time jobs, who overcame difficult obstacles in training or out, it's all really moving. I think those articles do more to build the sport. I don't know how to measure it, but I'm sure outlets like Runners World have stats on social media to backup that some of the articles they're moving right now do better than an elite marathon race recap or the training of a sub-2:10 runner.

I think a softer standard keeps more people going in the sport and that reaches deeper in the running community. You know someone from your local club who is chasing 2:18 or 2:44 so you start paying attention to the elite side of the sport a little more and the races they run. You get local press hits that wouldn't otherwise go out.

Whatever, some people think we should just line up the super fast & that's fine but that's not really how road running goes. There's mass participation at pretty much every elite race. I'm not saying to go to that but I think 2:22/2:45 would be a good thing. This isn't a track event. We don't have to be as worried about overcrowding. Then we get to hear more and more stories.

This is a good point.

I think, it has to be a balance between quality and quantity. This time it seems there are a little too many runners, especially on the women's side but that's just my opinion.

;kjlk;jl;kj;lkj wrote:

Women's standard is just soft. 2:19 is significantly harder for a guy. 2:19 is a very solid college runner training hard for another few years at least. 2:45 is anyone who takes running seriously. There's people running 30 miles a week and 45 year olds getting the women's standard, not to mention it's basically 2:50 now with all the spring shoes. It should be closer to 2:35 just to make it as hard as the mens.

30 mile per week training and 2:45 for a woman? That is very hard to believe.

red glare wrote:

this and this wrote:

Like it or not, the 2:45 US OT marathon standard for women is an example of an affirmative action policy being applied to running.

Dude, every guy 2:13-2:19 is a nonfactor to select the team and thus are OT tourists. Every cutting criticism is a double-edged sword.

Don't tell that the Walmsley fan crowd.

Snowflake Elite wrote:

Love all the people citing high seeds who placed in the single digits from a time when we had precious little depth beyond Kastor and Meb with respect to world class competition. I'm okay if a Jenny Spangler type is left out if it means we're sending 2:19-2:26 level women in all three team spots! What, did Spangler, Briney, and Moody parlay their OT placings into being competitive for the podium at NYC, London, Chicago, Berlin, or Boston if not at the Olympics? The story of some underdog gaining 15 seconds of fame is not a goal of this process.

The example was from 2016! Katja Goldring finished 9th with a qualifying time of 2:40:33 from CIM.