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In response to
"At The Olympic Trials Marathon, DFL Means Pain Over Regret"
by
JD
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I've been thinking more than a bit about that article since I read it earlier in the week and DFL (which I had to look up) vs DNF
Posted by
JD (aka Jason Dean)
Feb 23 '24, 08:20
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I'm pretty sure that there's no larger field that the US allows for any Olympic qualification in any event. So between the logistics of being able to hold a single race and the pure merit of being there, I'm guessing that the marathon is the event that has allowed more individuals to be one step short of the Olympics than any other.
I guess for the team events technically anybody participating in the event is open to being evaluated by the Olympic coaches / selection committee but there's still a series of camps / matches for things like Volleyball and Soccer.
But for the marathon, there's a posted time. Actually two posted times: marathon / half marathon. Go to a certified event run those times or faster, here's your invite to Orlando. All those marathoners out there trying to run a Boston Qualifying time, child's play ;-)
Olympic Men Marathon 2:18 Half 1:03
Using the fastest i.e. youngest for Boston Men: 3 Hours flat.
42 minutes! That's like one or two episodes of some streaming show that some guy who qualifies for the Olympic Trials could watch while waiting for somebody who is a Boston qualifier to finish their marathon
OMG, the trial was held at Orlando! Though there's a method to that madness as the forecast is that it's not going to be exactly cool in Paris.
Wait. That's a sidetrack about exclusive it is to participate in the Olympic Trials race.
My vague point is that these are by time, the best of the best at the distance that our country has and the vast majority of them are unsponsored working people just like Dano and Heather. Ok, the runners who went to Orlando, they might be a bit faster but realistically their chances of getting one of the 2 or 3 US Olympic spots are just above Dano and Heather as at least they made it to Orlando.
They turn their lives upside down and yet they know, they're running to DFL. Serious enough competitors to know the term and still competing where that's the realistic goal.
Especially at the marathon distance, I trained, it generally went well, I showed up the staring line (like 15 minutes back by corrals) and then history showed, how long would it be till it didn't go well.
The difference in the mind set to be able to out and run sub 5 minutes miles until your body fails (DNF) and my where I guess I didn't the know the term but I paid my fee and showed up to not DFL. I just can't even....
I went out on kind of an equally low and high note for my organized distance running with the infamous Long Beach Half Marathon but officially that went down as DFL and so up till now that makes me perfect in organized running events of no DNFs
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