Have just tried to complete my ballot application for next year, came to the part “ethenticity” and was given choice British or Irish, I’m Cornish, a recognised race, so opted not to answer, bet that goes straight into the bin for not being completed fully!
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pretty sure Gold Bond places don't cost the charities £2k each to buy -for a lot of them, that's the amount of sponsorship they ask for? I thought it was more like £200-£300? Think the issue is that these places are taken up permanently by the big charities and none come available for the smaller ones.
The results this year showed that there were 47802 numbers allocated. So only about a third of places reserved for gold bond - seems reasonable?
I can imagine that they sell 500 with additional packages for 2 grand but most charities wont be paying that kind of price - as Gladrags says the charity usually asks for 2 to 3k to be raised to make it worth their while.
Meh.
Agree the bigger charities at London can be a bit oppressive when you're running. They do feel very 'corporate' but they are still charities however you look at it? If the charities are paying £300ish place then expecting a runner to aim for £2000 is not unreasonable. If you can't raise that, then there's GFA, club places or other marathons?
Have run London 9 times. 6 times for charity (5 Gold Bond and once for a smaller charity) and 3 times just for myself. No volunteer has ever commented on it, let alone been angry?
Final point is that the charity field - fancy dress and all - probably have a slower average time than the rest of the field. London does need some back runners otherwise it would be even more congested than it already is.
London still offers championship places, club places, good for age places. It clearly supports running.
Plenty of people manage to raise the £2k or whatever - and if they can't well there's lots of other marathons out there for them - or just keep entering the ballot. They'll get in eventually.
London is what it is. If it was all serious runners then it wouldn't be half the spectacle or get half of the attention from the public.
Its the charity element which provides much of the atmosphere. If you want a non charity feel then there are hundreds of other races available.
In the unlikely event that I also get my ballot entry, will I be able to defer my ballot entry to VLM 2020, but run the VLM 2019 under my charity place? Does anyone have experience with this please?
I am aware that I can ask my charity to take back their place, and run under my ballot entry for my charity, but I'd like to run 2020 without the fundraising pressure if possible. I think I'll be hard pressed to raise £2K two years in a row.
Maybe this is all wishful thinking, but the thought had crossed my mind and I can't find anything online about this. Thanks
> PeteM77, IF you are extremely lucky to obtain a place through the lottery then you can defer it until 2020, you will have to pay for this years entry and also pay again for your 2020 entry but it’s perfectly legal, I’ve done it on a few occasions, good luck!
Thanks for the response!
Davewood - you were absolutely right, right up until this year where they've changed it. Thye've made it much harder to achieve now - the times have dropped, it's the age you qualified (not your age on the day) and no guarantee - there's a limit on GFA applications, so if over-subscribed then the people who only just qualified will lose out (Boston has worked this way for years - running a "Boston-qualifier" time doesn't necessarily get you in). I thought the previous system was simple and fair, but apparently now we have to have exactly the same number of male and female runners, regardless of how well they qualify. So if loads of men apply, then lots of them will be turned down, despite perhaps having beat the time by some margin. If less women apply, then a greater proportion will be accepted. So a women could get a place having juts qualified and no more, but a man could be knocked back despite having bettered the time by more. Of course, it could also work the other way around, but the historical demographics when we actually had equality were that there were more men than women, despite the women having massively easier GFA targets in the first place. Don't want to sound bitter, but as a guy who has worked hard to achieve GFA by 10 minutes, then having this reduced to 5 minutes due to stricter targets (the women's targets haven't changed), it annoys me that there will almost certainly be many women who will get a place despite having a much easier target, and despite having beaten that target by a smaller margin than me.
Still, this seems to be the new version of "equality", and it's their race, they can organise it how thy like. I just don't like blatant discrimination, especially when it's dressed up as the opposite.
> Now the GFA system has been modified to effectively discriminate against men.
Oh come on guys. There are 3,000 places for men, 3,000 for women, right? how is that discriminating? You just have to 'good' in relation to the other men applying, and i have to be 'good' among the other women applying.
Christine5, it's discriminating because historically GFA has tended to consist mainly of guys, and so there is likely to be more competition for the male places.
If the intention is not to discriminate, then why create the distinction, why not just have 6000 places and the 6000 who beat their respective GFA times by the biggest margin get entry? Wouldn't that be fairer? Remember that the GFA times for women are much easier to achieve in the first place, being at least 43 minutes slower. This despite the fact that the record for women is only about 10 minutes slower than the record for men.
So women already have at least 43 minutes or more to play with, and pretty much guaranteed entry providing they beat this time, unlike the men. It remains to be seen how much men will have to beat the (more difficult) time by to actually get in.
Does this seem like equality to you?
I wonder when they'll introduce "non-gender-specific" times, and what these times will be?
that's equal by definition.
> yes, it does seem like equality. women get 3000 places, men get 3000 places.
> that's equal by definition.
No, equality is the male GFA being equal to the female GFA times. That's equality.
It takes concerted efforts to increase the numbers of women in any sport.
You wouldn't complain for instance that there are the same number of Olympic places for women as men, even though fewer women compete for places in many events.
Or if you there were more applicants for one job than another.
They had around 3,100 women with GFA last year (or so i read on this forum), so i don't think they will have fewer meeting the standard this year.
Am also sitting waiting to see if i'll get a GFA place this year - i do agree with you Rodeoflip that achieving a sub 3.45 wasn't quite the epic feat of a male sub 3.