Although marathons are lengthy, races usually come all the way down to seconds—seconds that separate runners, private bests, or, on this case, a nationwide age-group file. Calgary’s Ken Younger has twice come heartbreakingly near setting a Canadian masters marathon file, solely to be hindered by the handicap of beginning in a crowded corral—costing him essentially the most valuable factor in a marathon, time.
Earlier this month, on the 2024 TCS New York Metropolis Marathon, Younger set his sights on two formidable targets: profitable his males’s 65+ age class at an Abbott World Marathon Main and breaking the two:55 mark—a stable time for anybody, not to mention a runner over 60. Not solely did he obtain each, however he got here agonizingly near an excellent greater milestone: Ed Whitlock’s males’s 65-69 Canadian age group file of two:51:03.
Ultimately, Younger fell wanting the file by simply 21 seconds—the precise period of time it took him to cross the beginning line after the gun went off on Staten Island. Beneath Canadian Masters Athletics (CMA) guidelines, solely gun time—not chip time—is taken into account for file functions, making his near-record effort ineligible.
When Whitlock set his file on the 1999 Columbus Marathon, he began on the entrance of the race, guaranteeing his gun time and chip time had been equivalent. Whereas Whitlock didn’t face a delay attending to the beginning line, he additionally lacked the technological benefit of right now’s carbon-plated trainers (which Younger took benefit of)—however that’s one other story.
New York Metropolis marked the second time CMA’s gun-time rule has dashed Younger’s file aspirations. On the 2019 Toronto Waterfront Marathon, he completed two seconds forward of the boys’s 60+ file of two:47:02 on chip time, solely to fall quick by 12 seconds on gun time, rendering the efficiency invalid from a data perspective. Equally, the earlier file holder, Herb Phillips, had began on the entrance of the Victoria Marathon in 2004, guaranteeing his chip and gun occasions had been (once more) equivalent.
On each events, Younger submitted a request to the CMA, advocating for a rule change. “I’m not asking for it to be retroactive, however I don’t suppose the gun-time rule makes a lot sense,” Younger mentioned. “I perceive [using gun time] for the open class, however for age-group data, it doesn’t matter. Penalizing a runner from the beginning due to their place—it’s not rational.”
The CMA will not be alone in adhering to this rule, which dates again to the institution of World Masters Athletics (the World Affiliation of Veteran Athletes on the time) within the late Seventies. Whereas chip-timing expertise has since develop into the usual for stepping into occasions just like the Boston Marathon and different Abbott World Marathon Majors, the CMA, WMA, and USATF proceed to depend on gun time to validate age-group data.
Sure, Younger might’ve chosen a smaller marathon to chase Whitlock’s time, however the 2024 New York Metropolis Marathon offered him with a possibility to run whereas being cheered by his daughter, who lives within the metropolis. Nonetheless, big-city marathons deliver challenges, together with the massive mass fields that include it—in New York’s case, 55,000+ members. “Until you’re keen to elbow your technique to the entrance—which is hard as a 65-year-old man—and make quite a lot of enemies, there’s no technique to have your gun time match your chip time,” Younger mentioned.
Beginning farther again additionally meant coping with the chaos of jostling and discovering his rhythm throughout the first kilometre—points much less frequent in smaller marathons. These challenges underscore the disparity between elite runners, who begin on the entrance, and high age groupers, who’re relegated to assigned corrals.
The CMA board acknowledged the difficulty of chip time versus gun time and met to debate altering the rule for highway race data. They determined to simply accept chip time for nationwide highway race data beginning in January 2025. A consultant for World Masters Athletics mentioned they haven’t any plans to alter their use of gun time for world highway race data.