Flashes of Panic

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I spent part of this morning at the press conference announcing the World Marathon Majors, which will kick off in Boston in April. My story is on a few different sites by now, more tomorrow. But as usual, there’s more going on than fits in a 500-600-word report.)

I’ve been bouncing emails around answering questions, because everyone has one. So, a rundown of sidelights. (Hmm, there’s an unfortunate figure of speech.)

There’s some confusion about who’s eligible. The trick is to distinguish between “qualifying” races and “scoring” races. A “qualifying” race is one of the five majors, or the Olympic or World Championship marathons. Anyone who runs three of those in a two-year period (with at least one in each of the two years—not all three in one of the two years) is eligible. Even me, in the unlikely event that I was able to finish, say, Boston, New York, and Boston again, without winding up in a wheelchair.

The trick is the scoring. You need to finish in the top five to score. The only restriction is that a maximum of four scores will be counted; Catherine Ndereba, for example, had five scoring races in the hypothetical 2004-2005 season used for illustration, but only four counted. There’s no minimum in theory, but in practice, the worst-case scenario is eleven or twelve different marathon winners over a given two-year scoring period if there are no two-time winners. So the minimum winning score is at least 26, more than could be scored at any one marathon. The odds that none of them would have, say, a second or even a fifth somewhere else are vanishingly small; an athlete would need at least two scoring races to have even a freak chance of winning it all. The maximum score is a clean sweep: four wins, 100 points. I am having a hard time thinking of anyone who has been that dominant in recent years. Plenty of three-race winners, but the only one I can think of who may have done it would be Bill Rodgers while he was on his four-win streak at NYCM, and even Boston Billy was not unbeatable enough to hold down both majors (at the time there was just the two) even for two years.

The hypothetical ‘04-‘05 season had Evans Rutto (wins in London and Chicago ‘04, plus a 4th in Chicago ‘05) winning by five points over Jaoud Gharib (3rd in London ‘04, 2nd in London ‘05, 1st in Helsinki World Championships.) This five-point win shows that late-in-the-term marathons can be much like decathlon 1500m races: there’s stuff happening back in the field (Rutto’s 4th gives him the Majors lead!) which is almost as interesting as what’s happening in front (and possibly more lucrative.)

So why go for a fast time, or even a win, at NYC if the really important thing is to finish 4th?

It’s true that the system is set up so that placing is important, not fast times. This may lead to some gamesmanship among the athletes trying to figure out which races they’d have the best chance of winning, but as Meb pointed out, he was ranked in the 30s going in to Athens: you might think you’re avoiding a head-to-head with Tergat by going to Boston instead of London, but you wind up getting whumped by someone like Meb who just hit their form that day. It’s not worth worrying too much about who’ll be there who might beat you. Pinkowski also pointed out that some of the fastest times in Chicago came in contested races: the last three world records were set in races that weren’t decided until the last mile, if that soon.

As for “why go for the win” if the important thing is to finish 4th… the short answer is that ING gives you a much larger check for winning. Pinkowski’s exact words included, “This just isn’t part of their culture.” If someone capable of winning this title was in a race at all, it would be because they expected to contend for the win; otherwise, they wouldn’t have shown up. The top-heavy scoring means it’s nearly impossible to win this title without winning at least one, if not two, of the Majors, which means we’re talking about a Tergat or a Ndereba, not someone who might be satisfied to make the podium at all.

Anyway, who says 4th place in NYC isn’t going to take a fast time?

The fact that I think of all this stuff, let alone feel the need to share, makes me feel like an utter marathon wonk. But come on: how many millions of people do exactly the same thing every fall, figuring out which Bowl game their college football team is headed for? Or, for that matter, baseball standings? (Half games? What’s a half game?) Anyone ever try to figure out how tennis players are ranked? The only really odd thing here is that I’ve chosen a different sport than most.

In fact, the real point of this, right down to the prize purse (One Million Dollars, no fractions needed, hallelujah!) is to get more people paying attention. It raises the idea that what happens in New York in November has some bearing on what happened (and will happen) in London in April, and vice versa. And maybe it will bring some attention while people watch to see who will win the million dollars: maybe the winner of the Marathon Majors will get a fraction of the attention of the winner of one or two golf Majors. It will undoubtedly get attention in April in Boston and London. The question is: will it get attention next November in New York? How about in New York in 2007? If it does… maybe it will work.

Final note: Taking the T downtown on a snowy day == good idea. Riding a bike to the T station on slushy roads == bad idea.

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