I'm going to choose my words carefully, and hope not to upset anyone. It's really not my intent.
I was just on the Boston Marathon wesbite looking at stuff, and landed on the qualifying standards page.
If you're a 54 year old male, you have to run a 3:35 to qualify.
I understand that males are inherently stronger, faster, etc. but I just think that they should shave another 5 minutes off the women's standards.
At least this weekend I didn't hear (in an obnoixioulsy high pitched woman's voice): "Oh my god, I just found out that I qualified for Boston and I didn't even know it!", like is quite often the case when you hang around the finishline for too long. (And if I did, this time, I wouldn't have had the urge to punch something or someone in disgust. Phew!)
Then again, I guess I could just shut up and say that men just need to "shut up and run faster". But now I'm in the club, and have qualifed on what is arguably a fast course and on a slow course, so I will say whatever I want and kick back and wait for the assault in the comments box, Kelso-style.
12 comments:
I'll bite...just a random, probably meaningless statistic here. Go look at the results for this weekend's Austin marathon. Look at the 30-34 age groups for both men and women (the 'hardest' standard). 36 out of 412 men (8.7%) age 30-34 qualified for Boston. 25 out of 290 women (8.6%) age 30-34 qualified for Boston.
I'm not going to bother looking any closer at the results to figure out if it is 'fair', but I will say that the numbers speak for themselves. You just happen to hang around fast women.
I wouldn't care if they lowered the time for my age group, even if it meant that I never would have qualified. I just think that the number of women who actually qualify is lower than you think.
not sure if my other comment posted, but Sadie has a good point too - if the percentages are pretty similar I guess the standards are pretty accurate. Although with my BQ at 3:50 it does feel like it's too slow, there are a lot of fast 40 year olds!
I think it's horseshit. You think, on average, women are half an hour behind men? They should add five minutes to every men's division or take five minutes off every woman's division. Hell, the difference in world records is only like eleven minutes.
Though if they changed the 18-35 male qualifying standard to 3:04:11 you wouldn't hear me complain...
Here's my two cents worth - don't kill me anyone - I qualified every time I ran including the 2 times I ran "slow". I'm not so sure that the 40-44 yr old females are 10 min slower than the 30-34 yr olds though.
If I had had to run 3:30 to qualify I think I would have broken 3:30 by now instead of just hovering above it like I have. The first time I had to run 3:50 to qualify (yeah - I'm old) tons of people told me it would never happen. It did and it was on the current Austin course (it was the hardest marathon for me though).
Steve had the nerve to say"beginners luck" at the finish of that first marathon.
kelso is an ass
Oh, wait, you said Kelso-style. let me try again with these...
'Oh my gosh! I just qualified for Boston and I didn't even know that I had to run that fast!'
'we admit, you're inherently stronger and faster, but actually I think we have a stronger pain threshold...you know the whole childbirth thing. Let's just make women have to run 3:10, too. Would that be fair for you?'
'Shut up and run faster'
'If I have to hear one more man (in his obnoxiously grumbling half-moan) complain about how easy it would be to qualify if their time was 3:40, which is often the case if they are 18-49 years old, I just might punch something or someone in disgust'
hahaha! just kidding
Kelso IS and ass!
Sadie, looking at those percentages, I guess it does look pretty fair, but I'm not sold.
http://mysite.verizon.net/jim2wr/id202.html
Oh hush up. Come on, qualify for guaranteed entry into NYC, and let's go do that. BQ-ing is so last century :)
Sorry if this isn't the popular position, but I'm with Mike. I may be biased from running with all the lighting fast women in Rogue, but a 30 minute time differential doesn't make any sense. Especially when you understand that it was set, not from a calculation of phyiscal performance ability, but as a marketing tactic to get more women entered in the Boston race.
And does anyone else think it's a little condecending to women to say that they're only as good as the men if they run half as well? On the elite circuit women are generally no more than 10-15 minutes behind the men (when they're not in front of them).
That said, congrats to all the women who have qualified. You're still running heroes to me. One day I'll be fast enough to join you in the historic run.
If they would have only raised the male 30-34 time to 4:45:00 I would have made it! The BQ thing is so unfair to clydesdales. I think that the BQ time should be based on your weight, not your age or sex.
"This is BQ Country!"
Post a Comment