How much will my wave determine my final result

[Andrew Sherwood]

I'm in wave 15 because my qualifier was a 15 mile trail race at 9600 feet (2:05)...I ran 2:14 at the BTMR last weekend and would like to run in the neighborhood of 3:15 at the PPA. Is this going to be possible given that I'll probably need to pass upwards of 500 people to do this? Am I screwed?

[Yoni Fridman]

You're screwed! Don't even both showing up 

That is a horrible start wave for you, but makes sense why it happened. Assuming you run again next year and use this year's PPA time to determine your wave, you'll probably be wave 1 or at worst 2.

Having said that, I don't think it'll affect your race time much. BTMR in 2:14 is fast, and depending on how well trained you are for altitude, you should be able to break 3:15 regardless of start wave.

I think you'll have to pass over 1,000 people, definitely way over 500. You'll be able to pass a bunch of people in the first mile and a half, before the trail narrows. The next 2-3 miles after that will suck for you, to be honest. You'll be stuck behind lots of folks who are slower than you on the uphill. You'll be able to do some passing, but it'll be slow and take extra effort. At the same time, going slower than I want on the W's rarely ends up hurting my overall time, I end up feeling fresher and faster up high and making up the lost time. After the top of the W's and for most of the rest of the race, I find it's not that tough passing people. Runners have spaced out enough, and the trail is wider for the most part.

Overall, I doubt your wave will affect your total time by more than 5 minutes. Just my take, interesting to see if others will have different opinions.

[Mark]

Yoni is pretty spot on. I would strongly caution tho about going out too fast the first 1.5 miles to Hydro Street and burning yourself out. After Hydro, my take is that it will not take too much extra effort to pass folks in the later waves up to the top of the W's, they will most likely all be "walking" anyway except the exceptions like you. Simply announce your intentions to pass and 96.9% will yield immediately. After that, you should be well on your way to a 3:15. Good luck!

[pmcgrath]

There is a really good post "Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments" on this board from Aug. 2nd, 2016. 

John Garner, the guy who figures out the waves, does a good job of getting people in the right waves.  In that post he describes his formulas and how he moves people up if their GOG 10 mile time gives them a better placement than their qualifying times.  My 2015 PPA time wasn't very good, but my 2016 GOG time got me in wave 1 for last year's PPA.

I don't know if John has thought about it, but your case is a good justification for coming up with a BTMR formula similar to the GOG formula.  You definitely don't belong in wave 15. 

If you have to stay in wave 15, I think what Yoni and Mark said is very accurate.  I would caution you against using too much energy to pass people on the W's.  Pass when you can without having to speed up too much, but wait until you get to the flatter sections above No Name Creek to do most of your passing.  It will be much easier there and you won't have to use a lot of extra energy for it. 

In 2015 I barely missed wave 1 and was stressed about how many people I was going to have to pass.  I passed a lot of people on the W's.  In retrospect, it was a huge mistake.  I got to Barr Camp in about 1:30, but then took 2 hours to get to the top.  People started passing me about a mile above Barr Camp, and it never stopped.  I bet 90% of the people I passed on the W's ended up passing me above the A-Frame.  It was completely demoralizing. 

Just relax and take what the race gives you.  I think wave 15 will affect your time, but like Yoni said, I bet it won't be by more than 5 minutes.  Maybe it will even help a little by forcing you to go slow early on.  Plus it will make it a lot easier to beat your time next year.

[Mitch Walma]

I agree with everything above. Nice BTRM time!

[txaggies08]

Email John.  I wouldn't be surprised if they moved you up.

[John Garner]

Yeah, you are totally screwed....

Just kidding. 

I caught an oops in the way I was calculating marathon qualifiers over 5:30 and reworked the assignments. This is what I get for trying to get them out before I went on a 10 day trip where I get to leave the laptop behind and avoid the internet.

Since I had to rework them, I also factored in the 2017 BTMR results. It just seemed to be the right thing to do.

Long story short, you are now in wave 2.

Do yourself a favor and go out slow. :-)

--john

[Andrew Sherwood]

Thanks!

You are the man!

[Frederic]

Same here, I made the mistake to give a qualifier that is a mountain 50Ks and it seems that the formula used is favoring the flat road marathons (which is the type of event I don't run).
I gave my most recent 50K time (2016 Volcanic 50K) My time 5:49 (50K, +- 7,400ft gain at altitude) put me in the wave before the last, ouch! (even though my time is in the top10 of the race history)
If I had read better, I would have given my last trail marathon (that was somewhat flat) where I had a way better time (2015 Silver Falls marathon, 3:40)

Thanks for the advice on how to pass people, it seems like I will need it!
Is it realistic to think that I can pass more than 500 people as I aim a PPM time around 5 hours ?

Frederic

[John Garner]

It is very possible to pass a lot of runners if you are not to be too aggressive from the time you hit the dirt until you hit noname.

We have had folks start in wave 16 of the ascent go on and place in the top 30. Of course, they were female, so that helps a lot. It seems that most fast men are really aggressive when it comes to passing in the first 3 miles and just blow up once they hit treeline (if they even last that long). The women don't get so insulted by the fact that somebody is in front of them and pass when it makes sense to pass. :-)

[Mark]

So here's a flip: based on my last two training runs on the mountain, I am going to move myself BACK from my wave. I am not where I was at a few years back and I don't want my wave running me into the ground before we even hit Manitou Brewing Company Hell, if they were open at 7:00am I might just stop and call it a day, haha.

Saw quite a few regulars on the top today, good luck to all. See you in 2 weeks!

[Frederic]

Well, after having run this year's PPM for the first time, I can answer better the original thread's question : "How much will my wave determine my final result ?" and it might help future runners that feel like they don't belong in their assigned wave ?
Per my race yesterday, I can say that starting in the wave before last (8th wave out of 9 total) didn't affect much my result. Having finished 27th overall in 5:08:13, I was able to pass several hundreds of runners before Barr Camp and found myself in the top 100 at that time and top 50 at the summit.
In a nutshell, it didn't slow me a lot but it might have slowed me just enough not to blow my race ?

[Mark]

Yeah, I started in wave 3 and I think I remember you blowing thru my pack way before the Incline aid station. We probably slowed you down by about 2 seconds... Congrats! You'll be in the first wave next year.

[Frederic]

Yeah, I started in wave 3 and I think I remember you blowing thru my pack way before the Incline aid station. We probably slowed you down by about 2 seconds... Congrats! You'll be in the first wave next year.

Thanks, hopefully I didn't "blow" too fast, I tried to be as respectful as possible and it seems that people were nice about it.
It's my wife's turn for next year ;-)

[Mark]

No worries, my comment was meant as a total compliment. You studs deserve it! Now that you know the ropes I'm sure your wife will have a good qual time to submit during registration. Good luck next year!