After today's race had a bad fall and trampled women in the race, do people still think the entry standards should be this easy? Are women with broken ankles and black eyes "good for the sport?"
Standard needs to be stopped to limit it to 150 to 200 at the most. That is a manageable number, while keeping it as large as practical.
And interesting that only about 25% of competitors actually met the standard today .....
They should keep the standards as they are, but add a semi-final round.
run the rounds wrote:
They should keep the standards as they are, but add a semi-final round.
Rounds in the marathon! Oof!
The carrot of the 2:19:00 standard is what brought CJ Albertson (2:11:49 in Atlanta) back to competitive running after his college days were over.
Set the qualifying standard so the trials race is similar in size to the olympic marathon.
150 to 200 runners.
2016 - 155 men, 157 women
2012 - 105 men, 120 women
2008 - 98 men, 82 women
2004 - 102 men, 82 women
(from Wikipedia)
Trips and falls happen on the track as well. Maybe every race should be ran 1 at a time so that drafting and pack running and race strategy doesn’t matter and there’s zero chance of two runners coming within feet of each other.
How many were in the race?
They should lower the standard for men to get to the same number of participants as the women’s race.
It’s racing. Figure out how not to hit the deck.
700 competitors and 2 people fell. Several of the top competitors dnf’d for other reasons. Like it or not that’s not too terrible with fields of size. We see it on the track all the time. How many trip during cross country nationals? There’s always that risk on race day no matter the event.
Having the best meet on the same day, same course, same conditions is the most fair way to qualify.
Basement Troll wrote:
700 competitors and 2 people fell. Several of the top competitors dnf’d for other reasons. Like it or not that’s not too terrible with fields of size. We see it on the track all the time. How many trip during cross country nationals? There’s always that risk on race day no matter the event.
Having the best meet on the same day, same course, same conditions is the most fair way to qualify.
I 100% agree the best meeting for a race is the right way to decide the team.
However, when you have women running 2:20 to qualify, a woman who qualified with a 2:44 is 4 miles slower. 4 miles! A cutoff around the 2:35 range makes a lot more sense to me. Narrows the field quite a bit while still leaving lots of room for somebody to have a breakout race.
If you looked at the equivalent range in the 10k, the last qualifier would be lapped 4 times by the winner.
A couple people falling as an argument for a smaller field is a very weak argument. I've seen people fall at the start of track races with fewer than 20 entrants. And races like Chicago, New York, Berlin, etc. manage to start fields of well above 10,000 safely.
Jamin'sHSClassmate wrote:
Basement Troll wrote:
700 competitors and 2 people fell. Several of the top competitors dnf’d for other reasons. Like it or not that’s not too terrible with fields of size. We see it on the track all the time. How many trip during cross country nationals? There’s always that risk on race day no matter the event.
Having the best meet on the same day, same course, same conditions is the most fair way to qualify.
I 100% agree the best meeting for a race is the right way to decide the team.
However, when you have women running 2:20 to qualify, a woman who qualified with a 2:44 is 4 miles slower. 4 miles! A cutoff around the 2:35 range makes a lot more sense to me. Narrows the field quite a bit while still leaving lots of room for somebody to have a breakout race.
If you looked at the equivalent range in the 10k, the last qualifier would be lapped 4 times by the winner.
The fields cannot be based on a cut off. It's difficult to run another marathon if someone gets bumped from the list at the last minute. I don't know what the men's QT should be, but the women's should be 15 minutes slower than the men's.
Basement Troll wrote:
700 competitors and 2 people fell. Several of the top competitors dnf’d for other reasons. Like it or not that’s not too terrible with fields of size. We see it on the track all the time. How many trip during cross country nationals? There’s always that risk on race day no matter the event.
Having the best meet on the same day, same course, same conditions is the most fair way to qualify.
I think the set up for the trials is great and brings a lot of interest to our sport. 700 is a small race size and extremely manageable. I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more perks or advantages for the A standard runners. I think allows 2:22-2;24 men to participate would be great too. The larger field size does not take away from the race.
It costs money.
2:16:30 for the guys
2:32:30 for the gals
Make the standards tougher and establish multiple checkpoints on the course starting at 10 miles. Some wouldn't show up if they knew they would be pulled at 10 miles.
numb to numbers wrote:
Make the standards tougher and establish multiple checkpoints on the course starting at 10 miles. Some wouldn't show up if they knew they would be pulled at 10 miles.
Yeah, they show up. They aren't going to take a pass on a free trip and a chance to meet the top runners. A guy that qualified from Sacramento area was injured and couldn't run, but still made the trip.
Its not just about the speed of the athletes, its about the health of the sport.
Nobody predicted the results of the trails. If the results could be predicted by PR's there wouldn't be a trials at all. They would just put the people with the fastest recent PR's on the team.
The more rigorous the standard, the fewer the opportunities for captivating stories where a runner rises to the occasion and does something incredible.
The more runners in the field, the more democratic and American then process.
How many runners would simply end their careers if they didn't even get a chance?
SDSU Aztec wrote:
Jamin'sHSClassmate wrote:
I 100% agree the best meeting for a race is the right way to decide the team.
However, when you have women running 2:20 to qualify, a woman who qualified with a 2:44 is 4 miles slower. 4 miles! A cutoff around the 2:35 range makes a lot more sense to me. Narrows the field quite a bit while still leaving lots of room for somebody to have a breakout race.
If you looked at the equivalent range in the 10k, the last qualifier would be lapped 4 times by the winner.
The fields cannot be based on a cut off. It's difficult to run another marathon if someone gets bumped from the list at the last minute. I don't know what the men's QT should be, but the women's should be 15 minutes slower than the men's.
Who cares if it is difficult? We are talking about the last qualifier. If you are barely in a month before the deadline, it's on you not to try and improve your time. 150 in each race of a tougher standard that will ensure less than 150 and then roll down to get to 150 is the way to go.
