The good for age times for the Virgin London marathon guarantee a runner entry into next year's marathon if they can reach the target time set. Not only is the guarantee important for many club runners so that they can represent their clubs in the UK national marathon championship, but for many they represent a training target and level or achievement to aspire to.
This year the Virgin London marathon have decided post race to reduce the target time for 2014 for the open men's category from 3.10 to 3.05 and V women's 40-49 from 4hrs to 3.50, but only announced this after this year's marathon.
Thousands of runners have dedicated months and months or their time training to try and achieve a sub-3.10 marathon time, only to now be told that their time no longer qualifies.
This is heartbreaking for those runners. A marathon is one of the biggest challenges a runner can undertake and to run a good for age time a huge achievement, which should not be denied a runner post marathon.
We are petitioning Virgin London Marathon to agree that any runner who has achieved a a good for age target time based on the 2013 times, before the announcement of the 2014 good for age times, should be allowed a good for age place in the 2014 Virgin London marathon. In addition all changes to the future good for age timings should be announced six months prior to each London marathon, to allow runners to set their goals accordingly.
Sign the petition now
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Give_the_London_marathon_good_for_age_times_one_year_grace/
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They also changed womens 18-40 from 3:50 to 3:45.
ReplyDeletecouldn't agree more.. I trained for 3.10 in order to get GFA, was overjoyed to run 3.09.36, was already planning for the sub-3 next year. Now I find the goalposts have moved. I wouldn't have minded if I was told in December as I would have trained and run differently. Now having to look for another marathon.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be devils advocate here, but isn't it obvious why the target had to change? The VLM need to review the times run after the event and adjust accordingly knowing that former London runners will be the main GFA entrants in next year's VLM. This year the conditions were near perfect. If they we awful-windy, raining or extremely hot then the GFA times could be moved up. Sorry, but don't agree with the petition this time.
ReplyDeletePS I just missed out on the GFA time as well this year :-(
So I cracked 3.07.53 in the Boston Marathon. Now I'm pissed.
ReplyDelete