Why do we have to pretend a 2:18 male marathon is impressive?

The current OTQ is hashtag good for the sport, boomer

Because it takes a hell of a lot of dedication to get there, and most don't have the talent to ever do it. And yet, they still are sub-elite.

Great example of what people think letsrun is like vs how most of us really think

Well said. And while we're at it, a sub 4 mile is meaningless too (unless of course you tried to run 1 your entire competitive running life and came agonizingly close but no cigar). You ran 1:48 for the 800? Meh. You've got $1,000,000.00 in the bank? So what. They just aren't what they used to be.

30 out of 25,000 men broke 2:18 in Chicago. That's barely over 1 in 1000.

Because most people who post on here are extremely slow fans. I saw a thread where somebody said they have a 3k time trial at 68 seconds and they said it was too fast. 68 seconds is slower than my 10k pace and I personally consider myself a scrub because I would get destroyed by people like Nico young. Yet I’m comparing myself to essentially people who are considered “elite” on here because they praise a 2:18 marathon…which with super shoes, it’s extremely slow.

What is your marathon time?

Bro. I did a 3:15 at NY and brag like a MF’er. You don’t have to cheer for anything you don’t want; but don’t rain on my damn parade.

I ran sub 14 already in 1942. You are a joke as well.

You don't.

It’s about equal to a sub 14 5000

I agree the OTQ standard is way too soft.

It's like chess where Grand Master is the highest title. There are a ton of people at IM, CM, FM, etc but they are actually EXTREMELY far from reaching the GM title.

The OTQ time should be 2:12.00

When you run faster than 2:17, please let us know and post results.

My username was given to me by a friend when I got back from Las Vegas.

It’s not impressive because marathoners as a group are small and weak.

But it is impressive ... for an American!

It was pretty impressive before super shoes but it's still pretty impressive. It's like playing minor league baseball. Not many people get to that level.

This comment caught my eye, because it mentions two of my lifelong (with some very long lapses) avocations, running and chess.

Although I agree that the current OTQ standard is too soft in the super shoe era, I was also surprised by the earlier comment that only about thirty men (including, I assume, participants from all countries) ran that fast at Chicago this year, which isn't much different from the times at that race during much of the 1980s. In contrast, the GM title in chess has been wildly inflated over the years. I remember Walter Browne (whom I played back in the 1970s) liked to point out that he was only one of two players awarded the GM title in 1970 -- the other was Anatoly Karpov, who was only the third GM under the age of twenty (the first two were Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer). Back then, there had only been about one hundred GMs in the entire history of the title, including the inaugural group in 1950, and most were from the Soviet Union, where virtually all schoolchildren were taught the game, and the best chess players were the the most famous and influential sports figures in the nation (or whatever they called the USSR back then). Now there are thousands of very undistinguished players with the GM title, and I can't imagine how many IMs, FMs, and CMs there must be. And ratings have been grossly inflated as well. I remember when Fischer was by far the world's top-rated player at around 2785, and second was Spassky way back at about 2650, with guys like Pretrosian, Tal, and Larsen a bit lower. Now, Spassky's 2650 would barely break the top 100. It does bother me that the currency has been cheapened in a number of things, if only because it diminishes the appreciation of the greats (and even very goods) of the past, but I guess that's just part of modern life.

Yo, I made that thread. Sorry for being extremely slow by your standards. I have no illusions about where I stand compared to the actually fast college guys, but considering I started this sport as someone who couldn't run 8 min pace for 2 miles, I'm happy with how far I've come. Thanks for the shout out, though! That might be my 10k pace too in a few years.