Question:
In Charlotte this past weekend, they held 2 marathons ..
The olympic hopefuls (about 50 people) started their own
event at 9am, then the rest of us (about 1200) started at
9:30. This bothered me ... one thing I always liked about
running races was to compete in the same event as the elite,
despite having no chance to win.
Why was this done? To avoid the possibility of some elite runner
tripping over one of us? Does this happen in marathons elsewhere?
I just finished watching the 20th anniversary Hawaii
Ironman Triathlon (2.4 mile swim, 111 mile bike, 26.2 mile run).
This raised the following question in my mind: how would an elite marathoner
fare in the Ironman competition? I assume that the swimming event
would be the weakest for the elite runner. However, I also imagine
that the elite runner, with some training, could manage an average swim,
cook up a great bike race, and then smoke anyone left standing on the run.
Answer:This is only the practice for USAT&F Championship Events. No
other marathons in the U.S. will be held this way. At
Charlotte, there were only 17 finishere in this category. Some
of then ran completely alone!
The 1986 Twin Cities Marathon had a "national championship" designation,
which included selection of the team for the next year's world champs,
so they had a start for USA elite men, then USA elite women, then
everybody else (international elites plus USA non-elites). The time
staggers were chosen so that it would be unlikely that anybody from a
later start would overtake earlier starters, thus the people in the
two championship races would have clear visibility to their direct
competitors. In particular, the organizers wanted to avoid the common
situation where a 2nd-place woman cannot measure the gap to the lead
because the women's leader might be surrounded by near-elite men.
I was a volunteer worker for that event, and basically had to spend a
lot more time out in a cold rain waiting for the various groups to
come by and listen to the clock timings we were shouting.
I believe that your thinking that an elite marathon runner could coast through
the swim and the bike and then "smoke anyone" on the run is a bit mis-guided.
Just completing 2.4 miles of swimming and 112 miles of cycling is a challenge in
itself. Even a modest pace of, say 1 1/2 hours for the swim and 6 1/2 hours for
the bike(average times for men) would put you at the bike to run transition in 8
hours just as some of the top Ironman triathletes in the world would be
approaching the finish line for the whole race. Your elite marathon runner would
still have 26.2 miles to run!
World class Ironman performances for men involve a swim of 52 min for the 2.5
miles a bike split for the 112 miles of about 4:35(roughly 25 mph) and a
marathon run of about 2:45( a little over 6:00/mile pace).
