I had a weekend recap almost completely worked up for today, but with the Boston Marathon opening and closing registration yesterday, I figured I’d address that because I’ve saw a lot of complaining about the way it all went down. Charity runners are getting a bad rap, and that’s just wrong.
Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, I’m a marathon runner and a father of three. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I decided I wanted to do something to try to make a difference in the autism community, so I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far, I’m on track, through 50 of 61 with only 11 to go!
Anyways, registration for the 2011 Boston Marathon opened yesterday and I registered and got in. Registration was only open for eight hours or so and I’m glad I didn’t delay. Once it closed, though, I started seeing a lot of griping about charity runners on the Boston Marathon’s Facebook page, and that really annoyed me. So, I figured I’d address that today.
If you’re not familiar with the Boston Marathon and it’s qualifying standards, it’s fairly tough to get in. Men 18-34 need to run 3:10:59 or better (7:17 average pace per mile) and women 18-34 need to run 3:40:59 or better (8:23). Many marathon runners set qualifying for Boston as the ultimate goal and spend years getting there. I had to work extremely hard for about two years before I qualified for the first time. I went from a 2:29 in my first half marathon in December 2005 to a 3:07 full marathon in October 2007.
I went and ran Boston in 2008, and I consider it an annual reward for all the training I do. I train hard and really push myself. Boston is a race filled with great runners, great history and great support. I just love it.
In 2008, registration closed in about March. In 2009, it filled in either late January or early February — I don’t specifically remember, but it was around that time. Last year, the Boston Athletic Association made a gamble and sent off an email on October 29 stating that registration was almost full. I didn’t believe it, but I registered anyways, not knowing how many people would take the bait.
You get a number when you register, and fewer than 14,000 people had registered when that email went out. Shrewd move by the BAA — I was right! But within a week, registration was closed and I was in. I knew immediately that I would need to register on the first day this year. Boston had become a race with a reputation of closing early.
I registered yesterday morning, about five hours before registration closed. Then the next thing you know, I’m seeing all sorts of complains about charity runners on the Boston Marathon’s Facebook page, so I decided I’d write about that today. I wrote a quick post yesterday, but I’m following up with what I read about, because it really annoyed me
First of all, there are 26,700 runners in the race. There are 12 corrals and two waves. Each corral has 1,000 runners. 12,000 runners go in the first way and 14,700 go after that. From what I’ve read, there are 1,350 charity runners and about 3,900 entries that are somehow given out or sold through the Boston community to runners who haven’t qualified. So, you’re looking at approximately 5,250 runners out 26,700 who aren’t qualifiers.
Fewer than 5 percent of those are charity runners, and they START AT THE BACK! They’re not taking spots from anybody. They start behind all of the qualifiers, and based on the number of qualifiers, participants and wave one runners, I’m pretty convinced charity runners are add-ons, not spot stealers. Plus, since 1989, Boston Marathon charity runners have raised more than $100 million. Most charity runners are raising more than $3,000. And for that privilege, they get to sweep the course! I don’t know the exact number of entries sold yesterday, but it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 21,450.
Over the course of eight hours, that’s about 2,680 an hour. The registration rate probably accelerated during the day, because there were system issues early in the morning. So, take away those 1,350 charity entries and eliminate all the money they raise and give those entries to runners who achieve the qualifying times and you’re looking at registration closing a whopping 30 minutes later. Charity runners clearly did not cause yesterday’s problems.
Other folks are complaining about the entries given to the local community. Here’s something else I have a strong opinion about. The quality of the field and the history of the race are a big part of what makes Boston such a great race. But the local community does, too. They take the day off of work. They line the course and throw parties from start to finish. While residents of most cities complain about road closures, people in Boston treat you like royalty during race weekend.
People are excited to talk to you when they know you’re running the marathon. I had people applaud me when I walked into a bar after the 2008 race. The enthusiasm ranges from kids to college students to senior citizens. I gave hundreds of people high-fives during the race each of the three times I ran it because they come out and make the race what it is, so if they want a high-five, then I’ll give them one.
And along those lines, if the people of Boston want 3,900 entries, I don’t have any problem with the BAA giving those to them. It’s their race, not mine, and not some other fast guy’s, either.
It’s pretty simple, something we all learned in high school. Supply and demand. Entries are limited and there are a lot qualifiers out there. I expect the price to go up next year, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the qualifying standards get tougher. In fact, I think they should. It’s pretty obvious that only a minority of the people who qualify and want to get in can actually get in the race.
The purpose of the qualifying times is to reward the best from each age group with a spot in the race, not to reward all people who can run a marathon in an arbitrary time. The qualifying levels need to be re-evaluated, because they’re not limiting the field. If that happens, I might not get in, and I’m fine with that. I’ll just work harder if I want to go back.
For now, I’m glad I’m in for 2011. And I’m bummed for people who qualified but didn’t register in time. But I’m really bummed hearing people try to lay the blame on charity runners and the Boston community. As individual runners, we don’t own the race and we don’t have a right to run in it.
This is proof that I read your blog today. Although, I have nothing to comment on in regards to the Boston marathon aside from the fact that I didn’t qualify for it last year. 🙂 Love you!
Where’s the LIKE button on this website? You made so much sense here, completely agree with you. The Wall Street Journal wrote about how the qualifying times for women need to be much tougher.. makes things hard for this rookie marathoner but your progress in 2 years gives me hope that I will maybe one day BQ!
Congrats on another successful weekend! 🙂
Great post Sam! Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Except that I am a charity runner and I can’t even hope of BQ’ing until I’m maybe 50 or 60 (still shooting for that sub-4 hour goal). I’ll be posting my own thoughts on this on my blog shortly.
I’m with you Sam. Also look at it from this angle. Marathoners are fortunate their sport can have so many participants in it’s premier race! Do you have any idea how ridiculously hard it is for triathletes to qualify for Kona? 11 years ago, I was among the top 100 breast strokers in the world, and still didn’t qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials. Top 100 in the world, and not good enough to even tryout for the Olympics! But, it’s for the best of the best, and that’s how it should be!
Marathoners should be happy that participating in their premier event is attainable for so many.
I have little patience for whiners, especially when they target people trying to make a difference in the world.
Obviously, you know that I hope to one day BQ, but, if that will happen, who knows. That said, I think that the Boston Marathon is an amazing event and is such a city wide and community wide event. Boston gets hyped up for the race and just the energy around it is awesome. I think it’s realyl neat that BAA has a certain number of charity and local/community runners who get to participate in such an amazing event. Maybe I don’t get an opinion because I’m not in the group of people trying to register, but, oh well. I think that the charity runners add to the event, but, that’s just my two cents.
Great blog, Sam. As a charity runner, this issue obviously hits close to home. Maybe I’m too biased to form an educated opinion on the subject and maybe I shouldn’t voice my opinion because I’m not a qualifier but the backlash I saw on various social media outlets yesterday just disgusted me. Thanks for being a fast guy who speaks up for us slow and unworthy runners 🙂
Spot on!
Thanks for your comments, Sam. I agree completely. According to the BAA’s charity area on their web site, their charity program supports 24 groups, each of which is awarded 15 bib numbers to be distributed to participants who can complete the event in less than six hours and also agree to abide by race rules. Even factoring in bibs given to local running clubs to distribute, it’s a fairly small number compared to the overall total number of runners.
In fact, the BAA is being a good member of the Boston community, and if they can use their prestige to help nonprofits to raise their profile (and bottom line), then that’s a good thing. It’s about being a part of the place where you live, and working to make that place better through the means that you have available. (Sorry, that is a cut-and-paste from something I wrote elsewhere today!)Scapegoating charity runners because Boston 2011 filled up fast is unfair.
Here is my 2 cents. I qualified for Boston once, running it twice on my qualifying time. First, you should have 2 years to use your qualifying time but you should only be able to use it once. Also, I support tightening the standards even though it likely would push me out of ever qualifying again. I don’t want to get into the fairness of male and female qualifying standards much but I do believe there are issues there as my over 50 year old qualifying standard is 5 minutes faster than a female in their teens or twenties. It isn’t just how fast we are but how hard we can train and how well we can avoid injury as we get older which ultimately impacts ones ability to achieve a certain speed at a certain age. However I think this issue is a minor one and not the crux of the “problem”.
I don’t have a qualifying time this year but if I had I knew it would fill up in hours and I would have been on the minute it opened. If I still didn’t get in than that’s life. I have many ideas as to what to do but basically why should they care as they filled up anyway? The only reason I think they do care is that there could be a backlash and they could end up under registered in the future, although I doubt that.
I think they should allot entries to each marathon throughout a calendar year and not have one registration day but rather allow people to register after each race throughout the calendar year. Then have a lottery for the people from each race who don’t register in time to get the allotted slots for that race. This is more similar to Kona.
As to charity runners, it is a minor issue for Boston and I don’t believe that it impacted anything except I guess some could argue the few slots that went to them would have gone to qualifying runners. Also, probably without the impact of charity runners the fee might be higher and then people would complain about that. I do think that charity runners in Boston where the stress is so much on quality of field and qualifying is maybe contrary to their message but again it isn’t an issue and as noted above it probably has a positive impact in other ways. Even if charity runners were eliminated from Boston there would still be a large number of people who can’t get in since the number of qualifiers is so high due to the high number of marathon runners these days. This just seems to be a sign of the times, not just in marathons. There are more people than there are opportunities in many aspects of society. I think we all agree that charity is a positive thing or we wouldn’t be on this site.
Sorry guys, I agree that charity runners are not THE problem at Boston, respectfully submit they don’t belong or at a minimum have outlived their purpose.. Charity running has become an industry unto itself.
And Sam, I don’t know you so this is by no means directed at you, but many people use charity running as merely a means to fund, indulge, or otherwise justify their pursuits. I know a gal who just did an endurance event in all 50 states under the guise of charity. Certainly she raised funds but had her goal been to benefit the charity of her choice, the amount of time spent in the pursuit could have been put to far better or more beneficial use than the funds raised.
And please, do not tell me it is about “awareness”. People are aware of these diseases or causes. Not a single person is now aware of breast cancer because the NFL is using pink shoes and gloves this month. But Campbells has sure sold a lot of pink cans of soup.
Stroud, I disagree with you, respectfully. To suggest that Sam is using his son and a charity as a veil for his own endeavors is incredibly insulting, and implies that he is stealing from Train 4 Autism. You’re right, I’ve always been aware of Autism, Breast Cancer, Heart Disease, Leukemia, and every other disease that runners raise money for. However, me being simply aware does not mean that I’m going to donate money. The NFL wearing pink is a way of saying, “hey, don’t forget, we’re still working on that breast cancer thing.” I sure as hell hope that Campbell’s sold a lot of soup this month. I hope Yoplait sells a lot of yogurt when they do their lids for fund-raising, too. Not everyone can qualify for Boston, just like not everyone can run 61 marathons in a year or participate in an Ultra event in every state. If those individuals have the gift of superior physical health, then more power to them for using it to raise “awareness.” I’ll tell you what, I may have never donated to Train 4 Autism before, but I find Sam’s story incredibly inspiring, and look forward to running my first marathon in an Operation Jack shirt.