It started going downhill when it moved to a team event decades ago, in what seemed an astonishingly transparent effort to drive up interest in the almost entirely American audience by drastically limiting the number of African runners. In earlier years, anyone who met the qualifications could enter, there were no appearance fees for anyone and no pacers, money was awarded for both place and time, and a number of the best runners in the world would show up to run. It now seems a largely American race.
Strange to see my response to "Bolder Bougie Bolz" receive three downvotes. I was agreeing generally that the quality of competition in the Bolder Boulder has gone down a lot over the years, but also pointing out that it resulted primarily from the organizers' decision to go to a team format about thirty years ago, with a very limited number of lower-tier international runners representing various countries and regions. The one time that I ran the Bolder Boulder, I looked to my right at the starting line and saw Steve Jones, looked to my back and saw Frank Shorter, and spent most of the race battling with a two-time Olympian from Uganda. Ahead of me were an Olympic medalist from Kenya, a gold medalist from the world championships, and another future world championships medalist; behind me were another former American 10k record holder and another American Olympian. And NONE of those guys even won the race. All of us were treated equally, with no appearance fees, no pacers, and prize money going down to 32 minutes, which included more than forty runners. It was one of the best 10k races in the world, and it was a lot of fun.
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Big run from Anahi Alvarez in 3rd. She's a triathlete. Only 40 seconds behind Nawowuna who is a 29:47 10,000m runner. Alvarez is proving she might be a better runner than Gwen.
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Big run from Anahi Alvarez in 3rd. She's a triathlete. Only 40 seconds behind Nawowuna who is a 29:47 10,000m runner. Alvarez is proving she might be a better runner than Gwen.
She actually got Gwen in a World Cup last June. Super hot/humid conditions. She finished 1st & had the fastest run by 30s (Gwen's run was 2nd). Hasn't been able to put it together in bigger races but is still young.
Agree with some of the chatter around the pro field. Amazing that they paid 40+ deep back in the day with prize $$$ going down to 32:00. Feel like this is typical at a lot of big US road races. Organizers don't see the value in having strong pro fields. Mass participation isn't going down. Nobody is forcing these races to give back to the pro side of the sport but they could & they could do it in a big way. Bolder Boulder has a weak team competition with some decent Americans competing against B/C tier athletes from other countries. I would move away from that & just do it more like a marathon major. Invite some bigger runners & put together a decent prize purse. Pay out 15/20/25 deep. You have the money with what you're charging.
Also don't get the hate on people like Droddy & Riley. They might be past their best but they're blue collar guys who have always been easy to root for.
Last thing -- the lack of coverage on the home page also goes to why the race organizers could care less. There should've been a preview/recap of this race. Threads started on it. Etc. But the brojos would rather put up some click bait to get people going instead of raising up an event like this.
The top runners are really good but talent pool has gone way way down.
Back in the day, I think it was $5 for every second under 32M?/38F? Something like that. So a running 31:30/37:00 min runner could pick pick up some money and someone running 30:00 and 35:00 could do really well on the day. And OA prize money was pretty good in today's dollars. Like $5,000 or $6000 plus bonuses for time. But yeah no appearance money, which sometimes kept a lot of good runners away because they could get appearance and prize money at other races. Nevertheless, it was a big race, with 70-100 runners in the elite.
It was controversial at the time, but for several BBs in the mid-90s the Kenyans swept the top 10 (or 8-9 out of 10) and there were some ridiculously fast times (sub 28s at 5300'), so that's when they started the team format. That diluted the competition greatly and it seemed more Ameri-centric, with extra money for US runners. But in the late 90s-early 2000s they would have at least 30-45 runners in the elite field and 10-15 teams, including two US teams and a Colorado team for men and women. And you'd get a much greater range from other countries, US, Canada, Mexico, some South American Teams, Australia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa and a few from Europe such as GB, Netherlands, Belgium.
The latest versions have been very scaled back. This being an Olympic year might have something to do with that, but the last few haven't had that many international teams.
Would have loved to have been there for the "back in the day" experience. The energy in the A wave is still great but overall the BB feels very corporate and overproduced. The elite fields are also way too small. It kind of sucks the elite race is separated from the citizens but there are some benefits to running it later in the day with lots of spectators.
LMFAO team Mormon lost because old Jared Word was chosen as their 3rd man. They had to add a USMC team of 3 back of the packers just to have 6 teams on the start? This event just gets lamer every single year. At least they get Mantz to make it exciting. But don't forget that Ryan Hall, Deena, and Meb would race there, too.
What were the age grades for Jake Riley and Noah Droddy, well buried in the citizens race?
Administrative / Overhead: bank and credit card fees, business and event insurance, license and permits, postage, professional fees, office and warehouse rent, utilities $632,471