sam w wrote:
1) I looked for people who would be well known to a large percentage of general population. I tried to avoid "C" level celebrities who I thought would be forgotten when their "15 minutes" was up;
2) I excluded athletes who were primarily "runners" (other than world and American record holders). I made a couple of exceptions for interesting times like the fastest marathon leg of the HI Ironman;
3) I was looking for "benchmark times" that people could compare themselves to. That means I included Boston Qualifying times and historical Boston Qualifying times as well as current "corral" qualifying times for large races like Chicago. I thought qualifying for Boston, or getting into a specific corral at Chicago were legit goals people might have;
4) I excluded "gimmick" times, like "fastest person to juggle" while running a marathon. I did include fastest treadmill time and babystroller, and that's where the line was drawn. I wanted the times to be things runners could compare themselves to and since many have run on treadmills or been in a race with a baby stroller pusher I thought that was worthy to include;
5) I looked for times that a casual runner could compare him/herself to, which means I looked for times from the fastest to much slower times. I was looking for a list that from fast to slow a runner could have someone/some benchmark time to have as a goal to beat;
6) Accuracy was important. The time had be to verifiable in a race result list and not just posted by someone on an internet page. I excluded names if I could not find them on a results page and if the only proof was the person saying they did it I excluded that as well.
I started putting the list together after I heard lots of people asking friends who had run a marathon, "did you beat Oprah?" and even Sean Combs made a comment about wanting to beat Oprah.
This was my basic thought process and yes I may have too much time on my hands.
A few things:
1) Firstly, great list. Very comprehensive! You'd think that Runner's World would pay someone for this, or at least be interested in having compiled it themselves by now.
2) LetsRun is great for feedback and spreading the word, but this should live somewhere outside of LetsRun - the problem is that nobody's going to remember that "the latest updated list is on page X on a Y page long thread". Do you have a Tumblr page or something you could put this up on? Any kind of constant URL that just gets updated with the content.
3) I agree with your criteria except with the gimmick times. It seems like allowances were made with strollers and treadmills (why not have fastest stroller runner with a 6 month old, 1 year old, etc). Better just to take them all out, or include them all, rather than have this gray area always exist. People will always challenge it and it doesn't make sense.
4) Athlinks. Why no mention of it? Do you use it? If none of this information is on Athlinks, and if you've verified it then you should at least submit it. There should just be one place to verify someone's time rather than scour the internet. Athlinks has been around for a while now, it's a staple. Then link the Athlinks results to each person's time on your list.