As the temperatures cool down, more runners start turning their attention to running/racing a marathon. (No marathons for me this year. I’m only doing a half-marathon in mid-November.) But how would you feel if you ran a marathon and posted the best time, but you didn’t win the race? You don’t think that’s possible? Well, it happened at the Nike’s Women Marathon in San Francisco two Sundays ago. Turns out someone in the regular group (Arien O’Connell) ran 11 minutes faster than the winner in the elite group (which started 20 minutes before the regular marathoners). But because she wasn’t part of the elite group and they didn’t have to adjust their strategy to Arien’s time and effort, Arien wasn’t the winner of the race.
To which I say - BS. An 11-minute difference cannot be easily made up just because someone was racing in the same group as you. Anyone who has run a marathon for a good time knows you are spent by the end of it. If your first-place finisher only managed a 3:06, I don’t think she was going to average 25 seconds per mile faster if she had to go against Arien. Arien was eventually declared “a” winner and received the same trophy, but it’s not the same. And I think it just shows that starting the elites in a separate category is nonsense, especially when the elites race at a time that is not so elite.
Which takes us to the Chicago Marathon the preceding weekend (where a situation similar to Arien’s occurred in the men’s race — a regular pack racer had the 4th best time, but wasn’t awarded a fourth place finish). In this race, you had someone fall 10 yards from the finish line and struggle to make it across the finish line. He finally got some help, unlike Julie Moss, who lost the 1982 Hawaii Ironman just yards from the finish line after her legs refused to go on.
I love the music background on that clip.
With that, I want to wish my sister Emily good luck this weekend in the New York City Marathon. I think her training has put her on track to set a personal record in the marathon.
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