How 2,876 finishers become over 3,500 runners!
Early this morning, I was looking for the results of all Texans in marathons held across the country last weekend. As I was reviewing the times of finishers of the More Marathon in New York City, I noticed a glaring Mitch Albom-like error in the story on the magazine for women's website.
(Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press is being rung out to dry through the national media when he wrote a column that indicated a couple of former Michigan State basketball players were seen at the Final Four wearing the Spartans' colors. It turned out the they were going to be there, their plans had changed and the column, written a day or two before its intended publication, didn't get changed before it made it to black and white.)
Emily Frye and Neha Gandhi's story starts off like this: "Over 3,500 women from 45 states and 7 countries crossed the finish line in Central Park, New York City, on Sunday, April 10, in the second annual MORE Marathon for women over 40."
The story teaser is even more tantalizing: "Why 3,500 women ran 26 miles on a cool April morning, and how they did it."
Dig deeper, go to the next page and bring up the results, which are part of the New York Road Runners web site, and you will find that 254 women finished the marathon, including Austin's Tania Roberts, 56, who was last in a time of 6:38:25, and another 2,622 conquered the half marathon. Most notably, Austin's Carmen Troncoso, 46, who finished 3rd overall in 1:19:06 almost four minutes better than Colorado's Colleen De Reuck (1:23:04). Quite a turnaround from Houston in January when De Reuck finished 5th in the Aramco Half Marathon in 1:14:05 while Troncoso languished behind by more than seven (7) minutes, 1:21:47.
But the bottom line is: 3,500 women didn't run a marathon. 254 did. In fact, 3,500 women didn't even finish an event. I don't have a problem with triumphing the accomplishments of anyone (it is what I do here), but don't misrepresent the actual numbers to appear larger than life.
(Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press is being rung out to dry through the national media when he wrote a column that indicated a couple of former Michigan State basketball players were seen at the Final Four wearing the Spartans' colors. It turned out the they were going to be there, their plans had changed and the column, written a day or two before its intended publication, didn't get changed before it made it to black and white.)
Emily Frye and Neha Gandhi's story starts off like this: "Over 3,500 women from 45 states and 7 countries crossed the finish line in Central Park, New York City, on Sunday, April 10, in the second annual MORE Marathon for women over 40."
The story teaser is even more tantalizing: "Why 3,500 women ran 26 miles on a cool April morning, and how they did it."
Dig deeper, go to the next page and bring up the results, which are part of the New York Road Runners web site, and you will find that 254 women finished the marathon, including Austin's Tania Roberts, 56, who was last in a time of 6:38:25, and another 2,622 conquered the half marathon. Most notably, Austin's Carmen Troncoso, 46, who finished 3rd overall in 1:19:06 almost four minutes better than Colorado's Colleen De Reuck (1:23:04). Quite a turnaround from Houston in January when De Reuck finished 5th in the Aramco Half Marathon in 1:14:05 while Troncoso languished behind by more than seven (7) minutes, 1:21:47.
But the bottom line is: 3,500 women didn't run a marathon. 254 did. In fact, 3,500 women didn't even finish an event. I don't have a problem with triumphing the accomplishments of anyone (it is what I do here), but don't misrepresent the actual numbers to appear larger than life.
posted by WalkSports.com | 1:15 AM
1 Comments:
I sent an e-mail to the folks at More.com and got this response from Stephanie Jones Wagle, Interim Site Director, More.com & LHJ.com: "Thanks for your email about our Marathon story. When we wrote that introduction I didn't realize how misleading it sounded until you pointed it out. Thanks very much - the beauty of the web is that we can change our mistakes!"
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