Fast Running Blog

The "winner" of the woman's race in the Salt Lake Marathon finished more than 9 minutes after the first woman crossed the finish line.  Since she started 11:18 after the gun went off her actual time was 1:41 faster than the first finisher.  USATF rules state that the winner of any sanctioned race is the first to cross the finish line which may not necessarily be the fastest.  The Salt Lake Marathon's website states that cash prizes will be based on gun time, not chip time.  Why did they allow here to be declared the winner?  It is certainly possible that the woman who crossed the finish line first backed off the pace because she had a 3 minute lead on the next woman. 

I definitely agree with the rule that top 3 (or top 10 or whatever) should be on gun time.  It's not fair for someone to start further back, then "beat" you for money or top place even though they were behind you at the finish.  There is a good reason USATF has that rule.  Whoever crosses the line first, wins.

Everything should be gun time. This is not a time trial, it's a race! If the Salt Lake Marathon is going to continue to be a USATF sanctioned race and a Utah LDR Circuit event, it needs to follow the rules.

I get the impression that they don't even know the rules or care about them.

Yup, probably true.  If they follow form, they won't pay any of the winners without threat of lawsuit, anyways, so this is a moot point... 

The SLC marathon representative is disputing this reading of the rules on the Tribune website...what a crock!  Sounds like the LDR made the wrong decision to keep SLC marathon instead of Ogden or adding UVM.

Didn't see you had started a thread on the topic and I commented in the news and announcement area on the topic.  Also, the LDR as stated many times before would have loved to had Ogden Marathon on the LDR Circuit, let them know of your disappointment and maybe they will be back next year?

So I was looking at SLCM results for the last couple of years and found an interesting trend.  The winning time went from 2:16 in 2009 to 2:25 this year.  More telling, 10th place in 2009 was 2:45(ish), but dropped off to 2:57ish this year.  If I'm not mistaken, wasn't 2009 the year with the big fiasco where they didn't have any money and wouldn't pay the winners etc?  Would that explain the drop-off, or were there course changes etc?

This would be one thing if the Chip times were in any way accurate. But they were clearly not. I started before Ben Rush and finished after him. Anyway you slice it, he beat me. I show up ahead of him in the results because of an apparent glitch with the chip times. Allegedly both Teren and I took over ten seconds to cross the line, when we were lined up in the very front. Whatever SLC. Can we please, please drop this race from the circuit already?

They recorded me finishing in 1:50 even though I swear I finished in about 1:12:30.  38 minutes off isn't bad.  Oh, and last year they didn't pay me my whopping $300 for winning until February, only 10 months after the race.

Fritz, I saw you at mile 6 taking a quick nap.

Just another example of the dreadful management of what could otherwise be a nice event. 

Has there been a year yet where members of the FRB didn't have serious, substantial complaints about SLC marathon?  Does there come a point where this is a boycott (including media attention to all the issues)?

I bet some FRB-ers could put together a nice story for one of the newspapers- there was a fair amount of publicity a few years ago when SLC marathon almost didn't happen cause they hadn't paid the police for the prior or current year, and hadn't paid a lot of the other vendors, either.  Combine that with very late payments to the winners, the controversy with the female winner this year, plus the other snaffus, and you've got a nice story.  What's the point, you ask?  To let the general public, and especially the running public, know that there are a lot better local marathons to support than to spend your money on this one.  Ogden, UVM... anything but SLC.

I have reached that point. Last September I went up to Pocatello to run the half which was held in conjunction with the Pocatello Marathon. I came away from it feeling sad that Salt Lake didn't have such a race that obviously involved so much community pride, dedication to the little things that make a race great, and committment to professionalism on the part of the race director and volunteers. I suppose that's the difference between a corporate race that views everything, runners included, as a commodity, and a true community event.

So, I won't be running the Salt Lake Marathon or any related events in the future. Hope to be in Boston next year near abouts that time anyway.

Update - after 4 years, my Salt Lake Marathon boycott continues. Hasn't led to any emptiness in my life.

Ditto. I've even protested by removing myself from the entire state.