Trials Hopeful Left Out on a Technicality – runnersworld.com

Erin Gregoire crossed the finish line of the Houston Marathon, looked at her watch, and smiled. In her debut at the distance, she ran 2:42:55—well under the qualifying time of 2:45:00 she needed for the Olympic Marathon Trials.

In what has become a complex case, however, Gregoire was denied entry into the Trials, because the differential between her gun time (2:54:54) and chip time (her 2:42:55) was too large. And the day of the Houston Marathon (January 19) was the final day of qualifying, so it was her last shot at getting into the race.

“Obviously it was an incredible experience to just get to run the marathon, but I knew in the back of my head that the [Olympic Trials qualifier] was what I wanted,” Gregoire told Runner’s World. “To get that, and then in some sense feel like it was taken away from me, it was heartbreaking.”

When determining who makes it into the Trials, USA Track & Field officials, who govern the sport, considered only gun times. They only looked at chip times or “net times” if those times were “extremely close” to the qualifying standards.

But Gregoire, 22, had nearly 12 minutes between her gun time and her chip time—not close enough for USATF rules. That’s because she had to start the marathon from Houston’s B corral, a second wave of runners that goes off 12 minutes after the A corral.

Gregoire did not belong in the B corral. She had run track and cross country at Columbia University, and during her final outdoor year in 2019, she ran 16:17 for 5,000 meters and won the Ivy League title in the 3,000 meters.

After graduation, she took a little time off from running and started a job at the Rainforest Alliance. A few months later, she joined the Brooklyn Track Club. Four of her training partners had qualified for the Trials, and Gregoire was inspired to go after the standard herself. In November, she started training for Houston.

On November 11, Gregoire registered for the race and asked to be placed in the A corral, putting down a goal time of 2:44:00. As proof of her fitness, she provided her track personal bests from Columbia and her Strava data. Nine days later, Houston Marathon officials denied her request to be placed in the A corral because the results she submitted could not be verified.

Houston officials look only at road race times when deciding who gets into the A corral. Those time standards are 4:00 for the marathon, 1:56:00 for the half marathon, and 52:00 for the 10K. In other words, Gregoire could have jogged those times. But she didn’t have the right races on her résumé.

Houston officials told Runner’s World that 4,700 runners were admitted to the A corral. But Gregoire wasn’t one of them.

“[Gregoire] is a unique circumstance and by all means a standout, but she did not meet any of those qualification standards that are outlined,” said Muffy King, director of marketing, media, and brand for the Houston Marathon. “And so with the hundreds of requests we were receiving, we simply had to just draw a line in the sand and stay with it.”

On January 18, when she went to pick up her number at the race expo, Gregoire made a final plea for entry into the A corral, but she was turned down again. She decided to make the most of the situation.

“Maybe this is for the best, I can just go out, run my own race, and maybe pick some people off along the way and treat that as a confidence boost,” Gregoire said.

For the first seven miles, she ran with an acquaintance who had offered to pace her, and for the rest of the race, she passed runners from the A corral. Her chip time put her in results as the 21st overall woman.

Her coach, Steve Finley, filed an appeal to USATF women’s long distance running chair, Kimberly Kirkpatrick. He hoped USATF officials would allow her into the Trials, given her unique circumstances.

“Going into the Trials, she’s not necessarily going for performance, she’s going for experience, which I think is absolutely so important in a young athlete’s life,” Finley said.

On January 29, USATF denied Finley’s appeal on behalf of his runner. USATF did not respond to a request for comment from Runner’s World.

After Gregoire’s appeal was denied, a Brooklyn Track Club teammate wrote about her experience for Citius Mag in a post titled “Let Erin Run.”

On social media, Gregoire received an outpouring of support. Coach Kevin Hanson of the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project offered to pay for Gregoire’s travel expenses so she can compete in the Georgia Marathon, the community race the day after the Trials.

While Gregoire has not decided if she’ll go to Atlanta, she’s been buoyed by the response.

“I have felt so much support from my family, friends, teammates, and the running community as a whole,” Gregoire said. “So this experience is still a positive one in my head.”

Contributing Writer Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer living in Chicago.