Talk about lucky! In case you didn't hear, Boston entries filled up in 8 hours! - compared with last years 6 weeks, and up 'til 2006, didn't fill up at all.
I only just remembered by chance that it was opening last night, and logged on. Like many, I had to try about 10 times, each time it was rejected, all the info was cleared and I had to fill the form out all over again. I gave up, went to bed, and thought I'd try again today. Luckily I couldn't get to sleep and had one last try, with success!
I was only enetering as insurance, thinking that I could always defer by a year, but for the first time ever they won't allow deferral for any reason so I guess there's more motivation to get there, even if I end up doing it on the cheap.
I certainly think this will make the BAA tighten their qualification criteria. There was an article on message from Mzungo last week suggesting the female qual's were already too lax - 30min slower than equivalent male times when women's performance is generally only about 20min slower. Also, given that people dont hit peak marathon performance until about 40 (or exactly 40 in Clowns case) I think that the qual. time under 40 should all be the same.
Overall, I'd rather see the qualification times come own rather than a lottery - there are lottery runs around already, the popularity of Boston is due to it's aspirational aspect. Similaly I dont think increasing the field significantly would be good either.
Perhaps linking the qual times to a percentage over the worlds best for that age group would be better (eg world record plus 50%), although messier.
World records age male female (BQ)
all 2:03:58 (3:10-15) 2:15:24 (3:40-5)
40 2:08 (3:20) 2:26 (3:50)
45 2:14 (3:30) 2:28 (4:00)
50 2:19 (3:35) 2:31 (4:05)
55 2:25 (3:45) 2:52 ( 4:15)
60 2:36 (4:00) 3:01 (4:30)
65 2:41 (4:15) 3:12 (4:45)
70 2:54 (4:30) 3:45 (5:00)
75 3:04 (4:45) 3:57 (5:15)
80 3:39 (5:00) 4:36 (5:30)
A little confusing, but you can see that the steps up with WRs dont necessarily correlate with steps up in BQ. Anyway, it's not up to me.
Off to intervals tonight, repeating the mantra taken from Craig Mottrams talk last week - maximum 80% effort. Last week I ran 4x1000m with 2 min walk recovery in 3:15/3:16/3:16/3:15. Garmin made the track 1:02k which makes me think it was a bit short as Garmin generally overestimates round tracks with measurement error, but even with 5sec xtra each, thats closer to 100% effort, and I paid for it with a flare of viral symptoms and swollen neck glands later in the week, as I do when I push too hard.
Addit... Intervals for my future reference
10x400m, 75sec recvery
74/73/71/73/71/72/73/71/73/72
Pretty happy with this - did exactly the same session 2 years ago and av 78s, so at least I'm faster than then!
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4 comments:
Awesome that you got the Boston entry in. Its scary how quick races are filling lately. Same thing with 6 foot last year. Its a tough one, as to what the solution is. The harder you make qualifying the more people try and cheat, and people who should be there sometimes miss out. well done on the 3.15!'s !
Absolutely on the qualifying for Boston. Maybe they could use the masters age grading tables and limit it to, say, 70% performance. These are based on world records and are heavily used in masters events. Plenty of web-widgets out there to do it for us :
http://www.lollylegs.com/lollylegs/training/age_grade.htm
35 2:58:27/3:16:13
40 3:02:52/3:23:05
45 3:10:42/3:34:37
etc.
Nice sessions BTW... that 10k PB is in for a shake-up.
Yes, I concur that tougher qualifying times is better than lottery. Probably sub-3 qualifier for Open and sub 3.10 for Master are more appropriate and make the event more prestigious.
Widi - a bit rough on us lesser mortals there!
And there I thought simply by getting older I might get a chance....
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