{"id":4397,"date":"2016-04-19T09:20:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T13:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/?p=4397"},"modified":"2016-04-19T09:20:45","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T13:20:45","slug":"boston-marathon-charity-runners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/elbowglitter.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/19\/boston-marathon-charity-runners\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boston Marathon and Charity Runners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"images\"<\/a>Yesterday was the Boston Marathon.\u00a0 If you’re a runner, you might have been stalking the results, not just for the winners, but for your friends running.\u00a0 A number of my friends and teammates were out yesterday and I had tracking setup for each and every one of them.\u00a0 I couldn’t watch the live stream this year, but I was following the race through Twitter and other updates.<\/p>\n

An interesting debate came out in the afternoon over charity runners.\u00a0 I’ve talked a bit about what it takes to get into Boston<\/a>, and how some people think it’s okay to cheat to get a Boston entry, but I really didn’t dwell on the charity entries too much.<\/p>\n

Boston is the holy grail for marathon runners.\u00a0 People will work an entire season to get a BQ time.\u00a0 But that’s not the only way to get into the race.\u00a0 You can also get a charity entry.\u00a0 And according to some things I’ve read, the number of charity entries has been growing.\u00a0 I’m not sure how accurate that is, but according to a post on Runners World<\/a>, 80% of the entries into Boston are time qualifiers, meaning that 20% of the runners get in some other way.\u00a0 But that entire 20% isn’t charity runners.<\/p>\n

In 2016, there were 30,000 entries available.\u00a0 That makes 24,000 qualified runners.\u00a0 I’m not sure of the numbers for 2016, but in 2015, there were 2,585 charity entries.<\/p>\n

(Who are the other 3415 runners?\u00a0 This is a good question.\u00a0 I’m guessing the pros fall into this field, since I don’t see them having to submit qualifiers.\u00a0 I also know that sponsors get some entries to do with what they wish.\u00a0 And I’m sure the race itself gives out entries to deserving people, like those injured in the bombing in 2013.)<\/p>\n

It seems people have differing opinions of the charity runners.\u00a0 Some people think that they’ve done the work and raised a good chunk of money for charity, so they deserve to be there.\u00a0 Others think that Boston should be only for those who qualify, because it is such a high bar.<\/p>\n

How do I feel about it?\u00a0 My opinion is sort of mixed.\u00a0 I’m also coming at this as a person who will never qualify for Boston but who is also a retired marathoner, so I’m pretty confident in saying that I will never run Boston.<\/p>\n

I don’t take issue with the charity runners.\u00a0 Raising $5000+ is no easy feat for a lot of people, and this is a really important way for a lot of great charities to raise money.\u00a0 With 2585 charity runners, that’s almost 13 million dollars, and that’s assuming each person only raises $5000 and doesn’t go over that amount.\u00a0 That’s pretty awesome.<\/p>\n

But I do think that there should be some limits.\u00a0 I think that maybe running Boston as a charity runner should be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, or at least a rare experience.\u00a0 I see posts from people who are charity entrants every year for Boston, and I think that does take something away from how special it is.\u00a0 In many ways, that is taking a spot from another person who could have raced.<\/p>\n

Second, the attitude of some charity runners bothers me.\u00a0 Yes, you did an awesome thing fundraising.\u00a0 But you shouldn’t just be fundraising, you should be talking about that charity.\u00a0 On race morning, you should be saying how proud you are to race for the cause, not just brag about how you are running Boston.\u00a0 Because when you’re out there for a charity, you’re out there for something more than yourself.\u00a0 Yes, you get the privilege of running an awesome race, but I’d like to think that you’re also there to benefit the charity, that you chose your charity because it’s something you’re passionate about and not because “This charity is letting me run Boston.”<\/p>\n

So that’s where I stand.\u00a0 How do you feel about Boston charity runners?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the Boston Marathon.\u00a0 If you’re a runner, you might have been stalking the results, not just for the winners, but for your friends running.\u00a0 A number of my friends and teammates were out yesterday and I had tracking setup for each and every one of them.\u00a0 I couldn’t watch the live stream this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[49,42],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Boston Marathon and Charity Runners - 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