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Keith Strudler: How Fast Is Fast?

If you’re planning on running the Boston Marathon this year, well, good luck. And I suppose, congratulations. Running Boston isn’t like running other long-distance races, like say New York or Chicago. To run Boston, you have to earn your way in, or qualify. Runners can do that by running another marathon under a certain time barrier, which varies by age group and gender. Obviously, this begs the question, why in the world would someone want to run not just one, but two marathons? I’ll leave that to those with more sanity than I, having run Boston once before – although admittedly not well.

These qualifying marks have changed over the years. They used to be really tough. Like in the 1980’s, 19 to 39-year-old men had to break 2:50 to qualify. This year a 39-year-old had to break 3:10. And women’s standards have changed precipitously, adding new age brackets and standards, likely reflecting the insurgence of female marathoners over the years. And while the trend over time has been to relax standards, which has grown the race from a few thousand to now around 30, the reigns have tightened just a bit in recent years, to ensure the roads and municipalities could handle the loads of Nikes and Adidas.

Now, it should be noted that despite common perception, a qualifying mark does not actually guarantee that you get into the race. Over the past six years, you typically had to be a bit ahead of qualifying times – say a minute or two – to be invited into the field. That usually left a couple of thousand of disappointed runners who thought they’d made it, but in the end, would have to save their ice baths and shin splints for another day – and another city. That means you don’t have the privilege of 20 mile long runs on Sunday or the joy of 5 a.m. tempo runs in the dark before work. The inhumanity of it all.

This year, Boston seems to have hit a tipping point. The cutoff time grew to 4:52 under the time standards, leaving over seven thousand runners on the sidelines. That includes my son’s junior high cross-country coach and his wife, both whom thought they’d be tackling Cardiac Hill next spring. In response to this growing miscalculation, the Boston Athletic Association has lowered the qualifying mark for each division by five minutes for 2020. Ideally, this will bring hopeful applicants in line with bib numbers, making for fewer disappointed foot soldiers.

Really, the question isn’t about tweaking cut-off times, or whether the race can grow by 5 or 10%. Really, this is a question about the entire concept of qualifying marks in the first place. Boston has historically set itself apart from other, shall we say more pedestrian marathons, where you basically had to fill out a form and send in a check to enter. Some races require more finesse – although not more fitness – simply because they’re so big. So to run in, say New York, you need to figure out how to navigate the lottery. Or you can raise a lot of money for charity, be a big celebrity, or some other exclusive entry point. But running in Boston means more than just running 26.2 miles. It makes you part of an elite fraternity, or as elite as 30,000 people can be. You’re not just a long-distance runner. You’re a really good one at that.

Which means that negotiating the admissions price to the Boston Marathon isn’t simply changing a number. It’s changing the entire definition of what it means to be good. Of course, that’s been an evolution. It used to be that running over a four hour, much less five-hour marathon would be unspoken. Today, the average finish is around four and a half. So what it means to be a runner, a marathoner, even what it means to be an athlete, that’s constantly evolving. Which is probably a good thing – although it sometimes irks the fleetest of feet, who often don’t like the title “runner” used with such regularity.

Over 7000 people this year thought they were pretty fast runners. Turns out, according to the Boston Athletic Association, maybe they aren’t. That can’t be fun to hear. And starting next year, being fast is now officially five minutes faster. Perhaps that may inspire people to run a little bit quicker. Perhaps they’ll run another race somewhere else. Perhaps they might give up altogether. That’s the psychology of sport, the intrinsic rewards that keep us doing really hard things even though we don’t get paid for it and it hurts a whole lot. That will always be there, a guarantee. Even if your entry time to Boston isn’t.

Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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