raptors88 wrote:
Personally, I find no reason why not publishing any time over 4/4.5 hours should offend anyone. Yes, everyone paid the same sum of money to race and participate, but we need to have a line drawn between "just being there" and actually doing well. Many people obviously have other focuses in life and can't be bothered to log 80 miles a week due to time constraints, work, etc...and that is understandable, but we need to have a separation between these people and those who actually put the miles in and are dedicated to the sport. In a way, this all goes back to money. Even for grade 3 cross country, only the top x number of kids move on to the city meet. However, grown adults who we'd expect to be a little more emotionally mature need to have a nice big shiny medal given to them by a falsely enthusiastic volunteer, and given thousands of empty compliments (wow, you must be so dedicated, blah blah). Not only that, but now they want to have their name published in the paper next to individuals that ran sub 3. So why do small children put up with it yet adults bitch and complain? Money. Kids didn't pay to be there, but the adults did. People in this society need to realize that money can't buy you everything, especially results. Sometimes, there are NO shortcuts just hard work. In the end, its just an arbitrary standard. Use it as motivation to improve for next time, instead of finding another reason to complain about it.
On a side note, I wouldn't mind seeing Boston qualifying times cut down SIGNIFICANTLY. something like 3:00 or under for men 34 and under, maybe even 2:55. There needs to be a separation between an elite athletic event, and one that anyone with a visa card can enter.
Aren't we going a little overboard here? Do you know people that have been complaining because their time might not be listed? NYT is a private (publicly held) company and can publish anything they want.
I'm really having a hard time understanding where all of the anger towards slow runners is coming from. The NYTM has a number of guaranteed entry options for those that qualify. Those that don't meet one of those requirements can enter through the lottery. I've never entered NY so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that the lottery is a random drawing with everyone having the same chance of being selected regardless of time. 5 hour runners are just complying with the rules for entry set up by race management - the same rules that apply to 2:50 runners.
It makes no sense to blame slower runners for being in the race. Even if they decided not to enter because they thought a fast runner was more "worthy" there would be no guarantee a faster runner would be selected in their place. If you don't like the system take it up with race management, but why blame runners who are just following the entry rules?