Day 3,412: Peachtree Road Race time standards get tougher!

This year, the Peachtree Road Race did away with the sub-seeded wave and made it tougher to get into Wave A.

With the Bank of America Chicago Marathon looming, I'd thought about not running in races that did not have specific meaning for my goals ahead.

That meant possibly skipping 5Ks and 10Ks as I moved forward. But today, the Atlanta Track Club gave me reason to run in those extra races because they've made it even harder to qualify for Wave A.

This year, they folded in the old sub-seed wave as well as special waves for the fastest women and the fastest masters runners and made a hybrid out of the seeded runners and Wave A.

"Several different waves starting at the same time created unnecessary confusion and no real benefit to the runners in those divisions," the track club said in an email today. "Combining those waves makes timing the runners more manageable, efficient and most importantly accurate."

To get into Wave A you have to have run a 5K in 21:52 or faster or a 10K in 45:23 or faster. Last year the Wave A standard was 22:58 for a 5K and 47:39 for a 10K.

Luckily, I'll still be in Wave A this year because of my 21:18 time in the Vinings Downhill 5K last August. I was considering not running in it this year but I think I will just to make sure I remain qualified for Wave A in the future.

In February I did run 45:16 in the Charles Harris 10K, qualifying for Wave A by seven seconds.