Monday, April 14, 2008

Think the NYRR Races Are Getting Crowded?

I don't know whether to be worried or psyched to see these numbers (these are the number of finishers in some recent NYRR races, taken from the race results Web site):

2006 Scotland Run 10K: 5,126
2007 Scotland Run 10K: 5,720
2008 Scotland Run 10K: 6,928

2006: Thomas G. LaBrecque Classic: 5,384
2007 Run as One, TGL Classic: 5,721
2008 Run as One, TGL Classic: 6,103

Next week marks the start of the corral system ...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The races are getting harder to navigate not only because of the raw numbers, but also because participants tend to travel in packs or to listen to headphones, oblivious to others. The corral system is only going to break those groups up if they haven't established their "corral pace" together and if the faster individuals in the groups would rather be farther up than be with their friends.

Because your posting of these field sizes piqued my interest, I went to the results of each of these races over three years, expecting to find that the median time (the mid-pack runner) had slowed significantly over time, but I didn't find that. One was slightly slower over the years, the other was slightly faster.

Anonymous said...

It's nice to see the growing interest in running, although I do agree that at times the last few races have been a bit messy. I think (hope!) once people get more accustomed to the corral it will be better. I found the Wall Street run to be a complete disaster. The course just could not accomodate that number of runners safely. I saw people jumping over construction areas, fire hydrants and cutting corners all over the place. While it was fun to run through a different part of Manhattan, I thought it was quite a mess. And no one was lined up by times, but I suppose it was to be expected as it was more of a recreational run and friendly competition between the financial companies.