The mental gymnastics of these people that BQ at revel is truly fascinating. Arguments are being made here that shoes have a bigger impact!? I won't debate how much "super shoes" really help, but am willing to stipulate that they do provide a benefit. But still, the runner is accountable for moving their body along. On a revel race, you literally have the force of gravity of an entire planet pulling you down the course! All you have to do is keep picking your feet up and our good friend Earth does the rest!
Again, where’s our massively fast revel performances? There’s a fair amount of of OTQ or near it type athletes that run these, I did my research on my competition because I was expecting to place at this thing considering the course “gives you 10-15 minutes”. I’ve ran Boston and multiple other “fair” courses, thought as you did and believed i’d annihilate my marathon PB at this thing. I’m in no doubt PR type shape, all my nutrition went down fine and my heart rate metrics tell me I wasn’t overcooking the pace by a long shot, yet I probably just ran my worst ever marathon on that course, and I felt significantly better at mile 18 than I ever have. The fact that people that have not even raced these races are arguing about the effect it had on my body and the physics to support that is silly to me.
Like I said, it’s aerobically easier, but your body and muscles pay the price and I don’t think that completely evens the playing field, but it makes it closer than one would imagine. I had 3 runs at 20 miles or more on unforgiving rolling hill courses during this buildup where I was ready to run again the next day, and feeling fully recovered 2-3 days later, and i’m telling you this thing sat me on my butt fully immobilized for 3 days, and I was incapable of running until the week after. I’ve never felt like that after a marathon, and i’ve ran faster on supposedly harder courses.
I definitely concede that the benefit is diminished at faster paces. The forces imparted on your body get quite high and I can understand that by doing training runs below a 6 flat pace on hilly terrain. I cringe when I see a huge downhill facing me.
But the point is, at that pace you have a good aerobic system. These downhills are undeniably a massive advantage for novices. I'm 35F and I don't even have to hold an 8 minute pace to bq. At that kind of pace, bq'ing down a mountain is just coasting. No aerobic stress, just sore legs
My man, you can literally buy your way into Boston if it's important enough to you. Wailing about downhill marathons is a waste of time. Boston likes catering to runners willing to spend $ and travel a long way in the pursuit of their marathon calling.
If you can get in by running fast, great. If not, train some more. Or run faster on a downhill course. Or just pay lots of money. The BAA is happy to see you get in however you prefer.
I've run Boston. It's great! But it's a mass participation, big-city marathon, not the Olympics trials.
Actually female, and sub 3, so couldn't care less about BQ cut offs. But if I were fringe, I would want to qualify in a way that allowed me to look in the mirror and know I did it fair and square. I think we can all agree that running boston, in and of itself, is not that big of a deal. It's more of a way for a hobby jogger to feel like they accomplished something difficult, which is great! Welcome to boston, you played by the rules. But how someone can coast downhill and not at least admit a PR asterisk is, to me, symptomatic of this vain instagram world we live in where image is more important than integrity.
Actually female, and sub 3, so couldn't care less about BQ cut offs. But if I were fringe, I would want to qualify in a way that allowed me to look in the mirror and know I did it fair and square. I think we can all agree that running boston, in and of itself, is not that big of a deal. It's more of a way for a hobby jogger to feel like they accomplished something difficult, which is great! Welcome to boston, you played by the rules. But how someone can coast downhill and not at least admit a PR asterisk is, to me, symptomatic of this vain instagram world we live in where image is more important than integrity.
I'm not saying anything you don't already know, but I bet this correlates pretty strongly to the general personal character traits of a female who has done the training necessary to run sub-3.
So you want the field to be 60% charity/giveaway bibs?
I think right now they should move all standards up 5 minutes, and there might be some to move up 10 (if the numbers back it up). Considering they ended up with a cutoff of 5:29 it's not like they'd have a ton to do then.
I don't mind Boston filling it's slots equally between men & women. Women got to the marathon later & are still closing the gap to the equivalent male time. I don't want Boston to be 2/3 men & 1/3 women. Investing in the 50% of women now encourages them to stick with it, keep improving, & drive qualifying times down. Standards can already come down across the board by 5ish minutes. They could probably do 10 across the board & people would go out & get it done to qualify.
As far as prestige goes, Boston is Boston. It's always going to be. But I would (selfishly) love to see some sort of major race for the in between BQ & OTQ types. Would be cool to have big waves & pacers going after fast (but not quite elite) times. Japan has some of these races with sub-2:40 or sub-2:30 entry standards. Sub-2:45/Sub-3:05 would make for a pretty cool event.
that "fat" person isn't lining up next to a 2:44 guy. They are back in wave 4 starting in noon with full sun exposure. The 2:44 guys are in wave 1, at the front just behind the elites. You would know if you were up there.
This was shared in another thread: The male-female ratio went down very minorly (56.9% this year vs. 57.2%). Probably not enough to warrant them singling out the women QTs, even if by some objective standards they might be easier. If they're going to do something in the short term, you'd think it would just be 5' down across the board.
that "fat" person isn't lining up next to a 2:44 guy. They are back in wave 4 starting in noon with full sun exposure. The 2:44 guys are in wave 1, at the front just behind the elites. You would know if you were up there.
2:44 is not fast enough to get into corral 1 anymore.
Let’s be honest. With the cutoff likely 5’ these are way too easy for men and women.
With women’s WR time about 8.5% behind the men’s, the Q time for women is 17% which for equality should be closer to 10% or less.
I’d rather see more prestige come back to Boston rather than worry if I’d get in.
so to reach the cap should they adjust women’s times only? That would create a huge stir. So what times should Boston be?
id say it’s kind of embarrassing that they need to change the standards all the time. Should be set it and forget it.
Standards need to be adjusted every so often on the real given how shoe tech getting better and certain times not meaning what they used to (see the opening remarks to the WR in Berlin in Tuesday's episode of the Track Talk Podcast for reference), there are so many races people can run in, shoe tech getting better and certain times not meaning what they used to (see the opening remarks to the WR in Berlin in Tuesday's episode of the Track Talk Podcast for reference) and races are getting routes drawn to promote as "BQ-friendly" so they can get large crowds and better publicity for the next year.
A big question would be how many open spots would be left unfilled depending on how much faster the qualifying standards got. If they want to keep the field at 30,000 - and let's be real, there's no way they're going to want to have fewer people pay the registration fee and contribute to the local economy in Boston and surrounding area when they travel in for an entire weekend and an extra 1-2 days because the race is the only one on a freaking Monday - they may be able to make the standards a little faster on one/both sides and still not be in any worries of having unfilled spots.
Personally, I just wish they would not allow stupid races like Big Cottonwood or those other massive downhill races.
I agree that Boston should ban times from the massive downhill courses. They're creating this reinforcing loop where Boston gets too many qualifiers due to all the cheater courses, so they have to drop the standard, and then people find the new standard too hard so even more of them resort to cheater courses. I think they're reluctant to do it because it would instantly destroy most of these races, but it's really getting out of hand.
The standard should be that gross elevation loss must be less than net elevation gain, or maybe allow a max of 100m or something. That would allow honest courses with plenty of uphill to remain.
Lol the Boston Marsthon itself doesn't even meet your criteria
that "fat" person isn't lining up next to a 2:44 guy. They are back in wave 4 starting in noon with full sun exposure. The 2:44 guys are in wave 1, at the front just behind the elites. You would know if you were up there.
2:44 is not fast enough to get into corral 1 anymore.
OK, but still early in Wave 1 (by corral 3, probably).
Saying that there's no room for people who beat the qualifying time is garbage when you're allowing thousands of charity runners to buy their way in with no qualifier.
As someone who typically qualifies by 30-40 minutes, I still resent the inequity of the enormous gaps between men's and women's qualifying standards, especially as you get up higher in the masters' categories.
As someone who typically qualifies by 30-40 minutes, I still resent the inequity of the enormous gaps between men's and women's qualifying standards, especially as you get up higher in the masters' categories.
The women's masters standards are quite a bit stiffer on an age-graded basis than the men's. W70 (4:50) age grades to around 75%, while M70 (4:20) is around 65%.
The qualifying times now are a joke. I had to run sub 2:50 to qualify for Boston in 1982. There were no super shoes then. Maybe they should go back to those times and have real runners in Boston.
People travel cross country to a Revel race to get their BQ all the time. We all know someone who has done it. They are also more likely to apply if they hit their time, so yes, they are too steep, and yes 2000+ spaces for those qualifiers is too many.
Yes, Boston discriminates against men. The women's qualifying times are more relaxed as a percentage of total marathon runners and their overall times. But they want to balance the field more, so it is what it is. (Thankfully, there are only 44 runners in the sanctioned cheat category, so that's not a big impact. yet.)
2 things are happening. The number of qualifiers is returning to 2019 levels AND the number of applications skyrocketed. There were 55,000 qualifiers in 2022, and there was no cutoff. It dropped to 47.5K in 2023, then back up to 52K for 2024. But with an increase of 4.5K qualifiers came an increase in 10,000 applications! THAT'S the anomaly.
My guess is the mask outside crowd is getting their revenge travel in because they are finally comfortable doing a big race, so you're getting a ton of applications. Sure, the downhill issue should be addressed, but it is just as likely both the qualifying and application numbers will dip again and the cutoff will be back to the 1:30-2:30 range. There may come a time when the times need to get tightened up again, but I think they'll wait. Besides, chasing the time, whether or not you get to run the race, is part of it what keeps Boston top of the mind for more people.
Agonizing over BQ times is dumb. Look at the numbers. In 2022, there were 29470 qualifiers in largish North American marathons. Of those, how many came on significant downhill courses? Under 2600, less than 9% of the qualifying times. (I'm including Revel Big Bear, St. George, Revel Mt. Charleston, Phoenix, Big Cottonwood, and Mountains 2 Beach. If you want to calculate the numbers yourself, be my guest.)
Rating each course is not something the BAA needs to waste resources on.
9% is a lot for just the half dozen medium size races you listed. These people also screw up the pacing on the crowded Boston course when they show up and run 20 minutes slower than their qualifier. Plus they keep adding new races, Revel is adding ones in Colorado and New Hampshire next year and I’m sure there’ll be more on the East Coast. The question is, should the BAA cater to a company that solely exists to help people cheat their way into the Boston Marathon, or should they cut them off before it gets out of hand?
I guess Revel could start collapsing like Ragnar and RNR. Ragnar got run out of a few places because of poaching weekends. I can’t see Boston stopping any specific organization or changing rules to disqualify company’s. Let revel implode on its own.
