Full Marathons

(This is the 50^th anniversary of my first article in Runner’s World magazine. All year I post excerpts from my book, This Runner’s World.)

September 1999. America no longer produces many of the world’s best marathoners, but we bring out the most. Some critics here would connect these two facts. They would say that our country now places too much emphasis on participating in marathons and not enough on excelling in them.

Americans certainly turn out in great numbers. Some 419,000 people, a record high, entered our marathons last year. A handful of these events are big enough to earn the title “mega-races.”

The New York City Marathon regularly tops 30,000 entrants. Honolulu has risen above that figure on occasion. Three other marathons in this country – Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago – stand at or near 20,000.

Many of them could be bigger yet, and others could grow just as large, if they allowed unlimited entries. More than 50,000 would run New York if the streets and bridges could accommodate that many. Instead, this race cuts off entries when they reach a specified number that changes from year to year. It fills within days – months before race day.

The Boston Marathon is the only annual race in this country to restrict entries through qualifying times. Even while requiring performances as fast as 3:10, the race draws more than 12,000 runners. Boston showed its immense popularity by easing requirements in 1996. The field exploded to almost 40,000.

Restricting race fields is the most talked-about trend of the moment in this country. “Full marathon” has taken on a new meaning. It no longer distinguishes the 42-kilometer event from the half-marathon, but designates events that have filled to capacity and are accepting no more runners.

This happens in events as large as the New York City Marathon and as small as Napa Valley (which topped out at 1800 runners this year). Perhaps the hottest ticket is for St. George in Utah. Runner’s World once designated its course as fastest in the U.S., and marathoners have lined up to enter ever since.

People who apply too late for the full races are now voicing some frustration. Many of the complaints come from self-proclaimed “serious runners,” who blame less-serious participants for shutting them out. The purists claim that marathons are running contests – not the walk-when-you-feel-like it, take-as-long-as-you-wish events they now appear to be in this country.

The purists’ wrath is directed especially at the fastest-growing group of marathoners. They participate as organized groups to raise money for charity. Biggest and best-known is Team in Training, which collects funds for leukemia research.

The Washington Post carried a story this spring that quoted runners who couldn’t get into the 16,000-person Marine Corps Marathon. They complained that 25 percent of spots were reserved for the charities, which in turn kept that many “real runners” from entering this October event that filled up in March.

This conflict strains the traditionally friendly relations between marathoners of all abilities and sours the welcoming atmosphere of our races. It’s unfortunate, and also unnecessary in a country where dozens of other marathons would be thrilled to take in runners displaced by the few races that put up the “sold out” sign.

2018 Update. The numbers have changed since the last year of last century. But the facts remain: the big marathons (notably New York City at 50,000) would get bigger yet if they didn’t restrict entries. And the small stay that way, shrink or disappear while begging the rejects from the biggest to give the smallest a try.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Next Steps, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, Starting Lines, and This Runner’s World, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]