With the Brooklyn Half being pushed back a week to accommodate the "Brooklyn community," let's take a look at who gains and who misses out from this decision. Please note: There's a lot I don't know about this, so some of this is guesswork.
WINNERS
- The unnamed "Brooklyn community," which made its presence known to NYRR. So far, no information exists about who made what kind of pressure, though given the initial curious scheduling choice (a Saturday during Passover), one has to wonder.
- Runners who will gain from an extra week of training, and had a scheduling conflict on April 26.
- Runners looking to use the half marathon as a qualifier for the NYRR Marathon. According to an e-mail from the Prospect Park Track Club, and seemingly verified on the NYC Marathon site, the date for running a qualifying time to gain a guaranteed entry for this year's marathon has been pushed back to May 3, up a couple of days from May 1.
LOSERS
- NYRR. Give them credit for keeping the race around the same time, but the communication on this has been lacking, and they've messed up schedules for other runners and other races. Five thousand people will still run.
- Runners who had already built their schedule around an April 26 date, or who now can't make the race. NYRR will offer a chance to switch to another race, or a coupon good for another race, but as you may have seen from a previous poster, that doesn't quite do it.
-Possibly other races. May 3 isn't so bad (and apologies if I'm missing some races), but on May 4, there's the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia (10 miles and flat), the New Jersey Marathon and Half, and the Long Island Marathon and Half, all of which may have appeal to Brooklyn runners. Note if you want to run in New Jersey that weekend, you better sign up fast - they are approaching their limit.
REMAINING QUESTIONS:
- What caused the switch?
- What's the course? Note the Web site *still* doesn't say where the race is starting. Will it start in Coney Island, as in past years, or is there a possibility that it starts in Prospect Park and goes the other direction?
- Can NYRR settle on an annual date for this race (and the other half marathons in the Grand Prix series) or will they keep yanking them all over the calendar?
2 comments:
hey bklyn running, thanks for stopping by my site. i'm definitely in the winner catagory. the new date lets me run sybil, bklyn, and greenbelt.
bums me out that this race is getting shuffled around so much. good old days when the cherry tree10 miler was a training run for the bklyn half.
what part of bklyn are you from? i grew up in sheepshead bay, and lived in bklyn heights for a while.
LOSERS:
Folks who cut their vacations short--4/19-4/27 is a NYC DOE school holiday week--so that they could participate in this event, and for whom it's now too late to change plans.
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