Rich on Running: Marathon’s 5-minute drill seems a bit arbitrary

Five minutes. That’s 300 seconds ? or 10 TV commercials. And it represents a new standard of arbitrariness for the Boston Athletic Association.The BAA, like Bill Clinton, feels its runners’ pain ? the pain of having a qualifying time to run the Boston Marathon but being unable to register because thousands of other runners are also trying to enter.”The 2011 Boston Marathon reached its maximum field size of qualifiers faster than any previous year when qualifiers rushed to fill the race and the qualified field closed in eight hours, three minutes,” a BAA press release from last Wednesday reads.So the association limited the number of runners who could qualify for future marathons. Next year, would-be Boston Marathoners must not only meet the qualifying times, they must exceed them if they are to have the best chance of getting in. For the first few days of registration, the only runners who can sign up are those who have met the qualifying standards by 20 minutes or more. Restrictions ease up somewhat after Day 3 of registration but the message is clear: The BAA is tightening things up. Still, the association doesn’t explicitly prohibit “those who have met the qualifying standards by any amount of time” (its words) from running the race ? so the new rules seem tough yet fair.For the 2013 Marathon, however, the BAA has instituted an across-the-board markdown. Not only will its self-described “rolling admission” remain in effect, but it will cut the qualifying times by five minutes.This latter rule seems arbitrary. BAA executive director Tom Grilk said that “Our new registration process takes into consideration the many comments we received from runners this past fall and winter, most of whom urged the BAA to institute a system which recognizes athletic performance above all else.” Yet what, exactly, does five minutes represent? Grilk should provide more of an explanation.If Grilk truly wanted the qualifying times to honor “athletic performance above all else,” maybe he should have cut them by four minutes instead of five – four minutes being the longtime limit of how long it took someone to run a mile. (Roger Bannister of Great Britain broke that mark on May 6, 1964.) Or maybe Grilk should have cut the times by 3:43.13 – the world mile record set by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco on July 7, 1999. As it stands, the BAA is settling for arbitrariness over excellence.Challenging year for TechTech indoor track coach Gary Sverker’s team finished 2-4 this season, but prevailed through quite a bit of adversity.”We had a lot of snow days,” Sverker said, noting that many meets were on Wednesdays, “and the snow seemed to come on Wednesdays. We had makeups of makeups. It was a wild winter.”Still, the coach had high praise for two of his runners in particular: Ramon Ramos and Arthina Robert, both three-year veterans. Ramos posted a 6.78 in the 55-meter at the state Division 3 meet this past weekend, good for sixth place. Robert also competed in the 55-meters at the states.”They’re good kids,” Sverker said. “They work hard.”Doggone itSometimes it helps to know your running partner’s limits. A few days ago, I took my West Highland white terrier Daisy out for a run ? but after she slipped out of her collar once, and nearly did so again, I decided to walk her back home and run solo.Too fast, too furiousLastly, to the group of runners who dashed across Route 16 on a green light on Tuesday ? c’mon, guys, pay attention to the traffic signals!Rich Tenorio writes a weekly running column for The Item. You can email him at [email protected].