Ugh...that means Ironman St George on the following weekend is likely doomed as well.

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DFL > DNF > DNS

It's going to be virtual:
https://www.baa.org/...on-be-held-virtually

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<The Dew Abides>

I get that Ironman races are roughly a tenth (or less) the size but why do people think this is going to play out differently for triathlons?

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Big shame. Though, Massachusetts is one of the mega corona dumpster fire states, so I guess it was inevitable. Just a hunch, but I doubt there will be much of anything in the NE states this year (NY and the hot surrounding states).

No kidding. I think all the Tru/Duathlons in MA through July have been cancelled (I know all the races I registered for have been cancelled). CycloCross RD's are already being forced to cancel and CX season doesn't start until Sept 1.

not a shocker - all races are done in 2020 folks - including triathlons.

Bummer.

With the announcement that 2020 qualifying times can also qualify you for the 2021 marathon, it will be interesting to see how huge the cut-off will be for 2021. I'm sitting on a BQ -11:30, and I'm wondering if that will be enough!

Will also be interesting to see what the race fees are for the 2020 "virtual" marathon.

I guess my next step now is to start worrying about whether California International Marathon will be cancelled, too.

I am not sure where you are based but races in the US will happen in 2020 and I am pretty sure I will be able to race in the UK in 2020. Races of the size of Boston are unrealistic in the current climate but its going to be super difficult to justify stopping the local winter cross country series given we everything else that will be reopened by December. So I think there will be plenty of cross country, duathlon and cyclocross events held in 2020 if not smaller road races and triathlons.

First Tom Brady, then Gronk, now this

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Fixed that for you.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

I'm not one pushing for races to start sooner rather than later, but I could see an IM event <1000 happening at a rural race site in a state where the no. of deaths has been low in comparison to the rest of the country and the local politicians are eager to re-open businesses. I think a 70.3 is more likely because of the logistics of course set up (likely single loop, no out and backs) and a bit less of a need for aid stations. The IM event readiness protocols that are supposedly going to be released very soon should be interesting.

I feel for everyone who was registered for Boston this year. I hope you can qualify for next year with the time you used to qualify for this year's race.

I was feeling good about my BQ -4:29 from LA 2020, but now I am not so sure. In reality it is more like the -9:29 from 2019, but still...

-11:30 has got to be good either way.

Edit: on the 2nd thought, it sounds like the field will be made of the qualifiers for 2020 plus anyone who has qualified between 09/2019 and 03/2020. It might not be that huge of a group because of the travel complications, people being more cautious with their travel plans, etc....

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I live in Boston, was planning on running this year, and was definitely expecting this second cancellation, as were my other running friends.

I decided to run Boston solo a few weeks late this spring -- great experience and quite satisfying, though so different from a normal race! Activity here: https://www.strava.com/activities/3391500685. Will probably do the "virtual Boston marathon" in the fall if I get back to enough run volume... it's been fun seeing people do all sorts of big workouts as quasi-race efforts that they normally wouldn't do.

Don't forget how this all got started .... Kyrie :)

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My marathon PR is "under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something."

I totally understand that reasoning but if I am one of those areas with little to no COVID cases/deaths there is no chance in hell I would want people coming to my small town from all over and possibly bringing the disease with them! I know that many of those places are in need of the money so it becomes a risk/reward situation but there are many places who are doing better than some and if I am one of them I would not want someone from a hotbed city to come to my town. But I know that cash rules everything around me, C.R.E.A.M. as Wu-Tang would say.

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Twitter - Instagram

Now i'm curious that will be what will be the standards for 2021.... does virtual race count, or they want to use the last 2 years or results?

^this, in general.

I believe there is a possibility of some small events (up to 200-300 people), with modified protocols being run in late summer to early fall, however any 'mega' events (>500 people) are DOA in 2020. It's not happening, just chill out, enjoy your summer doing fun bikes and runs and hopefully 2021 will be better.

And kudos to the Boston marathon leadership, for making a prudent call at this time instead of stringing people along like there is a possibility of an event in 2020.

I qualified in June of 2019 in M55 with a 3:17:36 and thus a bit more than 17 minutes under the qualifying standard. I had planned for Boston to my last longer road event, but I guess that will now have to wait another year. I however expected that as I could not see such an event happening in September or October.

Pretty amazing however what BA is doing. Money back and a virtual race, but I assume it is either / or. But to me even though I run virtually all the time and am in the middle of a 1000k virtual event as we speak, I surely will not do Boston virtually. My reason to qualify for Boston was to experience the whole deal in person.

But from the way it sounds I can use my 2019 qualifying standard to qualify for 2021. So yeah.

I really do feel for many of you who are in the areas that are most impacted by the virus. But point of order, there absolutely will be racing in many parts of the country this year. (we can debate if that is responsible or not on another thread.).

Agree. The reality that most of the country is not like the NE is starting to dawn on the country, and it is driving many of the re-openings.

If you look at just NY and its 5 worst surrounding states, they account for 55% of the nation's deaths with just 15% of the nation's population. The rest of the deaths are spread across 44 states and DC. Taking it just a tiny bit further, Michigan, Illinois, and Louisiana round out the 8 states that account for over 75% of all the deaths in the US.

So, the majority of the nation is a feeling a fraction of the NE impact. And further, CV deaths in most of the rest of the nation are below a typical flu season.

I think there will be events in some parts of the country. Boston having just gone through a major outbreak was a non-starter. Their outbreak had a significant start from a single biotech conference (https://www.bostonherald.com/...r-coronavirus-event/). Imagine what it'd be like with 30,000 runners and 500,000 spectators from across the world. I'm hopeful that my BQ holds up for 2021. Another year's worth of qualifiers could push the time down. But realistically how many BQ events can there be between now and September ?

Regional variability in disease prevalence means that events are a lower risk exposure in some areas compared to others. That's not no risk, just lower. But for other events I think they'll happen if they're small. Smaller events mean few to no spectators, no world wide travelers descending on your city, and a smaller pool of racers who are spread out on the course. Lastly, if racers have to be self-sufficient you don't need volunteers and the exposure at aid stations. Lastly, we have a big regional variance in political views about the severity of the virus. So I think some areas will decide that the risks are acceptable. As of today, I wouldn't do a major event b/c of the exposure risk. Just getting an asymptomatic infection would put me out of work for 14 days, not to mention actually getting sick. I might consider a gravel ride or two.

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Brian
“Eat and Drink, spin the legs and you’re going to effin push (today).” A Howe

I said it I think in this thread but I have in other threads about racing as well but if I am a governor, mayor, etc. on an area that is doing really well with reopening and cases staying low and going down I would not want to risk my community to put on an event that would then bring in people from all over the country. So I think local races happen in the better areas or maybe some bigger races can happen with travel restrictions. I know it will get confusing and hard to do but each community needs to look out for their own even if surrounding areas have different views. If you let that disease into an area that isn't impacted then that area will go back to lock down and impact so many lives in that area.

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Twitter - Instagram

In what ways is the rest of the US not like the NE? It is correct, there has been a much higher rate of infection and the majority of deaths (so far) have been in the Northeast. But I am interested in understanding what you consider are the inherent differences (age, geography, existing health conditions, whatever?) between the rest of the country and NE that would make it impossible at any point in the future to see the kind of carnage we saw in the NE?

Just using NYC as an example, to my knowledge, nobody at this point has a clear explanation of why NYC was impacted so badly, but LA and Houston so far have not been. Until we know the exact "why" of what has happened so far, I would be very hesitant to speculate about what is different (or not) and what may happen in the rest of 2020. Different people have "speculated", but nobody has produced a mechanistic explanation based on objective data.

So all I am questioning, is what is the underlying mechanism to explain your perception other than "since it didn't happen yet, it won't happen". I do agree with you (because the indisputable data shows this) that the Northeast is on the order of at least 10X worse than the rest of the US (after 3 months of COVID).

IMO, it's not that hard to explain. I am in LA and I have been following the data very closely.

LA doesn't have a lot of public transportation and it also has a much lower density of the population. The areas of LA where people live in cramped quarters and use a lot of public transportation (ie East and Central LA + poorer areas of the SF valley) have noticeably higher rates of infection. Richer areas (ie West LA, the eastern part of the 134 corridor, Hollywood Hills, San Gabriel, etc) had very few cases if you exclude the convalescent facilities, the old folks homes and the cases of people coming back from skiing vacations in Europe with Covid. In my town of 105k people, literally half of cases and 95% of fatalities came from 2 convalescent facilities.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment