Carnage in Orlando by the numbers

I agree- Ideally, they'd use a loop course like that race they ran in New York to help people qualify. But, I was at a watch party with a few people Saturday and it was fun.

The drama of the race unfolding and watching contenders drop back and out. Seeing the unsuspected come through was exciting.

Spectators along the course were great.

If only USATF (and NBC?) would promote it more and have commentators who can educate viewers and keep it interesting more people would love it.

If NYC was any indication, their best commentator was running the race. Rupp did wonderfully in his broadcast debut.

A couple of points these stats do not take into account

How many of those that dropped out, did it because they had lost their chance to qualify or a good time (PB or close to it)? Saina and D'Amato come to mind both would have been under the Q standard but decided to save themselves for another day. Although Saina was struggling already when she dropped.

How many single marathons have had that many Americans' under the Q standard? Has there ever been 81 qualifying in 1 single marathon before?

And what is the drop put rate of a main stream marathons for the elite's typically? Those who are doing it professionally or trying to get a Q, do they normally drop out in marathons when they are not running to their goal?

Plus, Paris is going to be a lot hotter. Shouldn't we send those that can handle the heat verse the time trialing that is the marathon races of today?

For 90% of the field, qualifying for the trials was the biggest race of their lives. The actual trials race itself, as was stated earlier, is just a victory lap. If they drop out, or don't even start, they still get to spend the rest of their lives telling everyone that they're Olympic Trials qualifiers.

Look at the entire field. Every athlete had this race circled & was trying to peak for this & run their best race possible. Very few even hit the OTQ it took to get there. 1-2min seems too low of a conversion. RunnersConnect temp calculator puts it more like 2:30-3:30 slow.

&, again, none of that is to say don't be tough & all that. It's pointing out the obvious -- 60s for most of the race & 70+ at the finish is less than ideal. With a tougher Olympic standard, we need to figure out what the best use of this race is for athletes moving forward. If it's clear, well in advance, that the race is going to simulate summer conditions, then maybe Americans need to start racing Berlin/London every cycle. I like watching Americans in NYC/Boston but it's not going to get athletes the standard & it's not going to get people on here to respect running for place. Starting this race at 6 or 7am would've gotten a bunch of sub-2:10s. Mantz/Young would've ran at least 2:07s. Korir runs 2:08:10. A bunch of people get PBs & then are maybe more attractive to sponsors. I think it's fair to ask what we want from the event when we line up our best marathoners, many of which haven't really taken shots at running fast marathons. It's not some sort of tired take about being soft or not tough enough. There's some nuance to it.

I can say all that and still think the teams are made up of athletes who can run well in the heat & that everyone can be a top-10 threat. Mission accomplished on that end. If I were in charge of the Trials, I would put it somewhere fast/flat to give people a chance to PB & hopefully become more appealing to sponsors after the race. I would also deepen prize money & have it not drop off so dramatically.

Conditions were not great, partly because the race went out fast. For the front pack, the pace was exactly what they trained for, which is probably why they were able to keep progressing. For the others, they seemed to underestimate the rising heat and many seems to be running PR paces within the first 6-8 miles. Not the smartest approach.

The drop out rate made me lose a lot of respect for marathoners. Just shows how entitled and selfish these “professional” athletes are. My kids and I came out to cheer on Keira D’Amato. We are huge fans of her and my wife found her inspiring. Emphasis on *found*. It was disappointing that she dropped out. Not the kind of role model I want my girls to look up to. She dug the hole deeper when she justified it in her Instagram post and called for others to do the same.

In regards to the Spring Marathon excuse, I think back to Sara Hall running marathons back to back when these runners say they needed to save themselves. It’s all a farse. Ego driven. 4 of 5 athletes from the press conference dropped out. Don’t they get paid appearance fees? If I were paying them to do an appearance or was their sponsor, I would be furious. There should be deductions for that unless it is medically necessary, like Aliphine Tuliamuk. Aliphine was vocal about her hamstring injury and it’s no surprise she dropped out.

I would like to add: my girls loved Ashlee Powers. She was fun. Ashlee gave them high fives, and even though she was having a tough time, she stayed positive. I couldn’t get my daughters to leave until she passed the final time! Funny, because you see what kids care about the most when it comes to sports.

Maybe marathoners need to start taking notes and thinking about the spectators. It may be their qualifier, but it’s the fans that keep them afloat.

Just make sure they dont do too much research into what ms powers does off the course

Looking at only the top finishers is huge selection bias and not a good way to look at it.

To illustrate what I mean - how would your conclusions change if you looked at the bottom finishers? The bottom 10 guys all ran slower than 2:30. Given they had to run 2:18 to qualify they all ran at least 13 minutes off their PRs. Are you now going to say the weather was worth 13 minutes?

Of course not. You have to look at the whole field or at least a less biased sample - for example you could go off of top seed times instead of top finish times.

I thought Orlando was fantastic and here are the reasons:
1. Flights were cheap if you bought at the right time. I got mine for $60 over Black Friday.
2. As far as the temps, I’m from Wisconsin and I was freezing when I got to the race. It was very windy in parts of downtown that made it chilly. Did it warm up? Yes, but not until the last part of the race.
3. It was spectator friendly if you knew the map and put in the effort. I saw the start, went to Bumby(?) street and ran up and down that road to see them multiple times before heading to the finish line with time to spare.
4. The Pro Bowl was on Sunday and if you waited long enough, tickets were $20 and you could move to just about anywhere in the stadium.
5. Downtown nightlife was great.

There were a lot of fans and I think the attractions and warm weather worked in favor of bringing more people to watch the marathon. Who the heck wanted to go to Chattanooga?

I ran in the race. I was very fit coming in and thought I was in PR shape, but then I saw the forecast. So I went out conservative (hit the half about 90 seconds slower than I would have under ideal weather), and I still blew up in the heat. But really like someone said earlier, it was more the sun than the heat if that makes sense. The sun was blazing and there was very very little shade. I finished, because no way I'm DNF-ing the trials, but my time was nothing special.

I saw several guys just quit with no noticeable cramping/overheating. They just didn't want to suffer any more. From what I can tell, 200-ish guys started the race and about 50 DNF. I would guess that, at least from the guys I saw quit with my own eyes, 80% could've finished the race but just didn't want to. So all that to say "carnage" probably isn't the best description, because several were still healthy enough to finish and chose to give up.

It's safe to say that if you qualify and finish the race, regardless of time, you're going to have a "decent" placing. Almost 60% of the qualifiers didn't finish. It's funny to read some of the write ups that talk about the number of people runner x passed from mile 17 to the finish, when in fact out of the 40+ they "passed" it was because 30 of them had dropped out.