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People who walk the Marathon
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It is not whingeing from these people about the alteration in qualifying times, more a complaint that they thought they had acheived a qualifying time for next year, only to discover later that it had been altered.
On the amount of training required, I think you need a base mileage behind you and if you were starting from scratch now I'd be looking to build up to around 30 mpw by Christmas and then kick on to at least 50mpw during marathon training to do the event justice.
Remember, there'll be plenty of people `whinging' who don't get a place so I think those of use who will be running should put in as much work as we can to acknowledge how lucky we are.
BR, I do wince for all the 3:00-3:15 runners: talk about moving goal posts! Futile gesture in their support: I have no intention of cluttering FLM in tray with my application.
I think FLM oversubscription is due to ignorance: first timers, one-timers, charity runners think run a marathon, oh yes, that must mean London. There are others.
But finding others with start to finish crowd support and a week's cutoff time - those perhaps are not so well know to the above clientele.
Abingdon - I shall probably need to pack a map, my own drink and a torch and cheer myself home, nor medal nor goodie bag will there be none. I want to find out what marathon means. I have no expectation of wishing to repeat that bit of education. I am sure it's going to hurt (in a way that half's don't), and I like "running" alone, so Abingdon should suit me, and FLM would be wasted on me.
Yep, I'll walk, more likely crawl.
There is an old Indian saying, before you judge a man you should walk a mile in his moccasins.
You will be fine at Abingdon, beautifully organised race and they look after everybody, you won't need a map or a torch.
Good Luck, see you there.
Some good points from lots of people on this thread. At the end of the day, it's just opinions that we're all entitled to. Nothing aimed at anyone as a personal attack. As I might have mentioned once or twice before a little bit of consideration to start times/pens by all might stop some of the 'whinging' by runners who are obstructed by runners/walkers obviously out of their depth-unless of course it's just one of those days!!
Happy running all!
The organisers might perhaps announce quotas for each time bracketwith the final 10% of each bracket being reserved for GFA.
The organisers only really want a few GFA entries in each age group to make the race results look impressive though so don't hold your breath.
BO
The problem with reserving spaces in each time bracket for GFA would be that after a while the time ceases to be `good'.
It doesn't directly affect me as I have a GFA time under the revised limits but I'm upset for colleagues of mine who trained hard and have had the rug pulled out from under their feet.
I still believe that if you want a good time you should run in a smaller marathon.
btw, where's stress man? He got us into this wrangle in the first place and seems to have ducked out as the heat rose. Can't stand the stress perhaps.
BO
What has it become?
Really runners. you all know what the FLM is like. If you want a pb or something then choose another race.
GFA? I should be so lucky! with finishing times in the range 3:45 to 4:30 I'll never make it.
I've managed a 4:20, training 5 days a week and averaging 50+miles pw. Don't I deserve as much consideration for a place as somebody who is lucky enough to be genetically predispositions to be able to run faster?
Anayway 3:00 is pretty crap compared with the winning time. So if you want to be elitest the GFA qualifing time should be about 2:45 or even 2:30. I mean if you are any slower than that you can't be a real runner can you?
Still I've done FLMs 7, and it does get crowded and there are people who are slowing down and walking, but they have as much right as anyone else to be there, even if they have been guilty of over-estimating their ability. Bet none of you GFA runners have ever done that.
Sadly though, at the moment you and I don't...
The only way runners like us can get a FLM place is by defying the laws of probabiliity (ballot or club ballot) or by bribing our way in via the goldbond scheme
Money a key factor in short and the trend to "sell" places (generating lots of money for good causes) as opposed to simply making them available to all runners on a fair and equal footing, and letting them decide wether or not to seek sponsorship.
I'm told there was a time when just about all FLM places were ONLY allocated by ballot and qualification...
Get the impression such places now in the minority - and diminishing further with the tightenting of the GFA times, allocation of places to coporate sponsors (I was offered one a week before the race a few years ago but turned down as 10k presented something of a wall then !) and the relativelty small number allocated to clubs and by ballot
If money is THE primary determinig factor here, why not auction all 45,000 places to the highest bidder ? Needles to say, other sports also suffering in this country as a result of this mentality
There is also an inherent unfairness in the goldbond scheme in that "professional types" (sorry colleagues !) can raise the moneys required with relative ease.
This is not a "moan" - simply, an echo of Hilly's plea that FLM be given back to the runners, of whatever ability.........
t
3:00 seems a reasonable time for a good club runner (male under 40).
Maybe it would remove the whole argument if they just had the UK championship qualifying time (2:45) for men under 40 then age graded qualifying after that.
I still think it's a shame that people who show commitment to the sport all year round by being club members and running unfashionable races are pushed out by people who want to run round dressed as Fred Flintstone.
(Retreats to dugout awaiting attack)
Remember,it's the 'powers that be' who set the GFA times and apparently these times are calculated based on world best times for different age categories.
IMHO I feel that the running clubs should be given first priority for places in the marathon, irrelevant of the pace of the runners getting the places. If this wouldn't work (I'm no good with figures!)then each club should definitely get more places than they currently do. Our club with approx 60 members gets just 2 entries, which is pathetic. Surely, even 10 places for each club or 10% of a clubs members wouldn't put much of a dent in the 32000 places up for grabs!
This is not a whinge, it's a give the marathon back to runners first then the others!
This year those 3 places went to slower runners who really wanted to do FLM and were prepared to commit to hard training.
They did not have to go into a draw of rejection slips as in previous years because 6 of us were in on GFA. Next year it'll be down to 2 of us, therefore more competition for the club places.
- Championship/Club/GFA ("ability")
- Corporate/charities ("£s/good causes")
- Ballot ("luck/patience")
and compare this with previous %'s, say in 1981 and 1992
Trick surely is to ensure a sensible balance between all of the above ?
I guess the thing with more club places is that you'd need to balance out the times somehow, otherwise the roads could get overcrowded in certain time bands. Certainly if you picked the best ten runners at each club then this would likely be the case.
In theory the slower charity runners aren't competing for places in the same time band as good standard club runners anyway. It's where you have a fair standard of charity runner and a mid range or slower club runner - say 3:45 plus that there's a competition for places.
There's also the point that some charity runners are club runners as well.
I know that isn't arguing all in one direction - I'm just thinking aloud!
However, many club runners who do so for charity do it because they've failed to get a place any other way so end up with a GB place.
Saying that there are also club runners who choose to run for a charity off their own ballot/GFA place. The difference being they don't have to raise large sums of money where a lot of it don't go to those who need it. I myself ran for a small charity who were so very grateful to receive the £500 that I raised.
As someone said earlier if you work in the right sort of company you can raise £1500 in a quick trip round the office, but for me it would take a hell of a lot more effort.
I do wonder where the GB money goes - does it go to the FLM charity or does it all go towards running costs and appearance fees?
The problem is as soon as you get a GFA qualifiaction you get threads like this complaining it isn't fair (because I don't qualify), or its really OK (because I do).
My point is that it doesn't matter where you set the qualifying time you are going to exclude a lot of good, dedicated (but not fast enough) club runners.
There can't be more than 20 runners in the race who stand a chance of winning, so what are the other 39,960 doing there anyway?
As I said in my first post, you all know what the FLM is about. If you want to do a fast marathon, go somewhere else. If you want to take part in the largest fun run in the country then take your chance in the ballot at the FLM.