So there’s a lot of annoyed women running bloggers noting how that men “invaded” the women’s orange F-start in the NYC marathon last Sunday. As if we had kooties!
I was actually one of those guys. But it was actually inadvertent: by the time I got out of the porta potty people were already moving to the starting line. I jogged over to where I thought was my start, only to realize when we went through an orange arch of balloons that I was in the wrong area. I could have tried to get in the correct area, I’m sure, but at that point we were already en route to the bridge. I was just trying to relax and save all my physical and mental energy for the ‘thon.
I didn’t think it was a big deal and I still don’t. I mean: we’re all running the same race. I was certainly just as fast or faster as the other woman around me; it wasn’t like I was slowing anyone up. (I think I finished about 20 minutes ahead of the one Flyer woman I noticed at the start, who started a little ahead of me).
And really: everyone pays the same fee; there shouldn’t be preferential treatment to anyone based on gender. I’ve never begruded women who entered men’s-only races (which I think are stupid) like the Colon Cancer half-marathon in the past. Sure if people line up beyond their abilities — like some people do at NYRR races in Central Park — that’s very annoying, but why should this be a big deal?
I think you raise some valid points, Derek. I can’t speak for Sister Smile — but as one of the women who was miffed about the men in our corral (I’m certain not all of them were there by accident, as you were), I should say that I felt that way not because I thought they would somehow hurt my race, or that they didn’t somehow deserve to be there.
I was annoyed because I think that it’s pretty cool that NYRR extends to many ‘regular’ female runners the special recognition awarded to the elite women (i.e., the preferential start), and I was annoyed that so many men so readily ignored that preference. It’s a man’s world in more ways than one, especially in sports, and moments of real, all-female camaraderie are hard to come by. The all-female races are one of the few places to find it – and so I think it’s ok for us to feel protective of them.
Sorry, Sister Smile, didn’t mean to single you out – I should have included NYFlygirl and Sara 🙂
My annoyance was more at the guys that should not have been there, time-wise. (not at you, Derek.) As Sister Smile said-the guys with high bib numbers. I saw people with bib numbers in the 30000s and 40000s up there.
I dunno Sempre. I don’t begrudge women the female-only races like the Mini, even though we all pay the same NYRR membership fee. (the men’s-only races they had for a little while seemed forced). And I don’t have a problem with the Boston Marathon being a bit easier for women to qualify for than men, even accounting for gender differences. It’s good to encourage women to be involved in the sport.
But if there is going to be a co-ed race I do think men and women should compete on equal footing. I mean, fair is fair, right? I remember last year and in ’99 (and I think in ’03) I ended up hopping over the tape to the orange side in Brooklyn for about miles three through six, just because the women’s side was so much less crowded. Of course I hopped back to my side eventually.
It didn’t bother me at the time and I never even really thought about it until I read all these complaints, but considering it now it doesn’t strike me as fair. Not that I’m going to lose sleep over it or anything.
Do you really feel it is still a men’s world? I have sorta been charting the decline and fall of the male gender here on this blog a little bit. Women are now significantly more likely to attend college and do better when they’re there. They’re more literate. They live an average of seven years longer and will earn more than men in about two decades.
Admittedly at the very tippy-top of the pyramid, most CEOs etc. are still male, but I think by many measures women are doing far better than men and that we are headed toward a matriarchial society.
(I also found some statistics from Marathonguide, last year 60% of all marathon finishers were men — but if you look at the last five years there’s a very clear trend toward more and more female participation).
Whew that’s a long comment. Flygirl I do agree with you, people should line up according to their pace.
Well, let me pose a different question: why is my Boston qualifying time thirty minutes slower than that of a man in the same age group?
Both the F start and the difference in Boston qualifying standards are primarily about leveling the playing field. From a purely physiological perspective, the fastest women in marathon running are simply not as fast as the fastest men. If women were held to the same Boston qualifying standards as men, you’d see a dramatic drop in the number of women who would be able to qualify because there are very few women who can perform to men’s standards without adjusting for differences in physiology. Looking at our club alone, if men and women were graded on current men’s standards for Boston qualification, not a single Flyer woman would have qualified – not even the very fastest. (You could certainly question whether a 30-minute difference between men’s and women’s qualifying times is the right measure to use, but that’s a different discussion entirely.) Similarly, lining people up purely by pace alone in New York means that proportionately, very few women would be able to benefit from being at the front of any of the three starts. Having a separate start for faster women is an attempt – I did not say a perfect one – to ensure that men and women share those benefits equally.
Regarding the stats from marathonguide you mentioned: I haven’t looked into it myself, but you’re probably right that women’s national marathon participation is on the rise. Even so, there were fewer than half as many women as men in the New York City Marathon this year (12,312 women vs. 25,528 men, a ratio of slightly less than 1:2). That’s not germane to the paragraph above or why I think having an F start is appropriate; I just thought it was interesting.
I’m with the girls on this one (but not literally; that was you). The women get their own start for a series of reasons, and whether you agree with those reasons or not, you just plain weren’t supposed to be there.
Acting like it was an accident doesn’t excuse the behaviour. If this had been your first marathon ever, maybe you could cry ignorance, but come on, Derek, you know that spending too long in the portajohn is no reason to be lining up in the wrong start. You’ve done too many of these things to not know the drill. You should’ve taken your crap earlier.
NYRR has a system in place so that, at least in theory, marathoners can run their best on race day. It includes corrals, three colour-coded start areas, and, whether you agree with it or not (and because you don’t seem to think it’s a big deal, you apparently don’t) a female-only start. The more people who ignore the rules, the worse it is for the rest of us.
Sister Smile – I certainly don’t mind the easier BQ standard for women.
But the way it works now, if you have a man and a woman of roughly equal ability — suppose both are trying to run a 3:30 — the woman would have an easier time of it, because of her less crowded start. Is that really a “level playing field”?
Isn’t there a difference between proportional treatment and equal treatment? Right now the U.S. college population is 57% women. Should the men who are there get additional benefits “to ensure that men and women share … [the benefits of a college education] equally.” Or should they all be treated equally?
All that said, the F-start for women doesn’t really bother me. I just can’t share people’s outrage that men were in there too. It’s a marathon, people jump corrals all the time.
Skylight: Well I think you are being a bit asinine here. Well mother nature calls I answer. The lines were already moving when I got back and I really did think I was in the right area. (There was so many men there I didn’t realize it was supposedly women’s-only)
I have to admit I have a bit of a problem with obedience to authority and don’t always follow the rules. In ’03 I was coming off knee surgery and had a green bib, but when I realized how crowded that start was — and that we’d be running on the lower level where I was vulnerable to getting pissed on — I scaled a wall and started with the blue. And last year I didn’t start according to my bib number, but several thousand places lower. I know, crazy huh?
Derek, I never said the system was perfect. It’s not. I do think it’s a vast improvement over doing nothing and having people simply line up in pace order. If women’s participation in marathons continues to increase at the rate you stated, in a few years all three starts are going to be equally crowded anyway.
As for the next point, I don’t see how college population stats are in any way relevant to a discussion about how marathon starts are organized.
While I’ll certainly cop to being irritated about men – all men, fast or slow – crashing the F start, I never said or intimated in any way that I was outraged. There are many other things that are much more deserving of outrage . . . and that’s my final word on this subject.
Dammit. I spoke too soon. Look at your second paragraph again.
If you take BQ qualifying standards as a measure of ability (and I don’t have any better ones at hand), a woman who runs 3:30 is not roughly equal in ability to a man who runs 3:30. She’s roughly equal in ability to a man who runs 3:00.
And that really is my last word about it.
Derek, you know I was being tongue-in-cheek about crapping earlier, but you do get my non-asinine point about proper preparation that I was trying to make, don’t you? You clearly should have enough marathon experience by now to know as well as I do that it’s asinine to think you didnt have enough time long before you got to the portajohn line to scope out where you had to be at the start.
I’d have to agree to your admission that this was more about challenging rules than “accidentally” falling in with the women. Your blog is often all about challenging people just for the sake of challenging them (by accusing them of being asinine, for instance, or posting about this subject in the fist place).
Sister Smile pretty much nailed what I meant by “it’s a man’s world.” And the comparison to college is worthless and even insulting, because while it is true that men are physiologically able to be faster/stronger than women, the same does not hold true for intelligence, where the potential is equal.
And while I’m also not going to go on a feminist rant, it is still a man’s world in many other ways, and while great strides have been made it’s incredibly naive to think that we’re anywhere near real equality.
Sister Smile: Okay, a couple points. I just used the point about college to make a point that there’s a conflict between equal treatment and proportional treatment. Your second point is kind of interesting. How do you measure ability? I think it’s pretty simple: how quickly each runner crosses the finish line. I mean it is a race after all; the goal is very simple. Yes of course men in general have advantages, more “natural talent” if you will. I think perhaps Flygirl trained harder than me for this marathon, but I was still able to beat her ’cause I’m a guy. For various physiological reasons men are better runners than women. That said, there are plenty of women with a lot more natural talent than me … I don’t think I’d ever be able to beat Paula Radcliffe, no matter how hard I trained.
Sempre: I think you’re missing my point about college. Or perhaps I just expressed myself badly. If so my apologies.
I think if you compare the highest-achieving men to the highest-achieving women, obv. the men are doing much better. But I’d argue that by almost any measure the average woman is doing better with the average guy. You see this most starkly in the African-American community but I’d say it’s true overall as well. Men are more likely to not to attend college, don’t do as well when we’re there and are more likely to drop out once we get there. Boys do much worse than girls in primary and secondary school. Men are four to 10 times more likely to commit suicide, much more likely to be homeless, and far more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. Men are more likely to be victims of murder and violent crime and 10 times more likely to be in prison. Men have higher mortality rates starting at birth and die an average of seven years younger than women. “From the moment of conception on, men are less likely to survive than women,” writes Marianne Legato in the NYT. Men still make more money but have less buying power than women. And this is more opinion than fact, but I think men engage in far more self-destructive activities than women.
I’d say in a lot of ways not only have women achieved real equality (in the United States), they’ve really surpassed men.
[…] Okay, this title is a bit rhetorical: obviously around the world women haven’t achieved equality with men. But in the United States? I left this as a comment, but decided could be its own post: I think if you compare the highest-achieving men to the highest-achieving women, obv. the men are doing much better. But I’d argue that by almost any measure the average woman is doing better with the average guy. You see this most starkly in the African-American community but I’d say it’s true overall as well. Men are more likely to not to attend college, don’t do as well when we’re there and are more likely to drop out once we get there. Boys do much worse than girls in primary and secondary school. Men are four to 10 times more likely to commit suicide, much more likely to be homeless, and far more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. Men are more likely to be victims of murder and violent crime and 10 times more likely to be in prison. Men have higher mortality rates starting at birth and die an average of seven years younger than women. “From the moment of conception on, men are less likely to survive than women,” writes Marianne Legato in the NYT. Men still make more money but have less buying power than women. And this is more opinion than fact, but I think men engage in far more self-destructive activities than women. […]
okaaaay, STOP! This all started because, as we all know, the men wanted to get with the women. Now, I would have no problem at all if I got a date out of ending up with a crowd of men at the start 🙂 …
seriously, if I had known that they would only be reporting chip time rather than official time, then I would rather be running in the back and PASSING people rather than being passed by them.
That being said…Derek is surely a good guy, no?…… not one of those annoying “terramia” guys who were throwing their nasty t-shirts off into my facing and screaming.
ok, you know I can’t spell…meant to say those jack-asses were throwing their shirts in my FACE.
I think things get skewed if only the women leave comments…
I think the F start is silly. But like Derek, I didn’t really think about it – until I started seeing women complaining about men being there.
I absolutely agree with starting the elite women early. The reason for that is for them to finish on their own, making it look like a race. And not to be sandwiched in the middle of the first few hundred (or so) men. However, for the rest of the F starters, there’s no reason. Eventually in the race they will settle in to be surrounded by people with similar race times, regardless of gender. So why should a woman have a preferred start, if she’s not running faster? In fact, that woman will now be in the way of the male runner who’s running a faster marathon, but started “behind” her because of his gender.
In general, I don’t think the way to equality, is by treating people differently.
The reason the Blue men were moving into your Orange area (around mile 4) is because their area was completly packed. Did you not notice that ? The was no room for movement, or in other words no room to make up time. I actually contemplated it but I knew better from running previous NYC Marathons. I knew that that a split would occur around the 8 mile mark – so I opted not too. I also noticed woman moving into the mens area. In fact I saw dozens of woman moving into our area. (3:35 finisher) – why was that ? I’m sure they needed to be next to some male testotorone. So I believe the mens reason for moving was valid and the womans reason unvalid. Really I do !!! I believe that was complete abandonment. I can’t believe your that anal to write about that.
Not so anon- actually some woman threw a t-shirt into my face! Well, it was an accident.
Let’s be honest dude…when was the last time u actually paid for a race. You bandit every race including the NYC Half Marathon (2009), in which you dropped out. Do you even deserve to be in a coral at all?
Someone has a lot of anger issues…
I started the half behind all the other runners – wayy in the back … and have not started in a coral at any nyrr race I haven’t registered for.