Boston Marathon BQ times under REVIEW for 2016

darkwave wrote:

One thing I've noticed - the harder it was for someone to qualify, the more Boston gear they buy to wear everywhere.

Exhibit A:

Young women are not underrepresented in Boston. In fact, under-40 is the only age group with more female than male runners. This holds true going back to at least 2010.

http://raceday.baa.org/2014/cf/public/iframe_Statistics.htm

No problem, nice to see women running.

Anyone know if 2018 Boston might get some changes?

It seems like the 18-35 for Men is quite a difficult feat presently compared to obese older women who can easily qualify.

If they did change the standard, what would change?

A flat qualifying standard would be good. Say 2.40 for guys, 3.00 for women.

Never going to happen.

Back in the Early 90's the mens standard was 2:45.

Runtofthelitter wrote:

Back in the Early 90's the mens standard was 2:45.

Untrue.

BAA Rumor Mill wrote:

http://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/baa-to-review-boston-marathon-registration

Word on the street is they will make it harder for men 18-45 while leaving BQ as-is for the rest.

This would make sense since young women are still underrepresented in Boston.

I demand true equality.

50% women, 50% men.

50% blacks, 50% whites.

50% muslims, 50% kafir.

50% trans, 50% cisgender.

I don't think the men's and women's times are equivalent at all. I wouldn't call 3:35 "easy" for women, but it's not the same as a men's 3:05. I think it should be closer to a 20 minute difference like the New York Marathon auto qualifying times. In that case, 3:25 for 18-35 women.

First, if the BAA made any changes, it would be for the qualifying window beginning in September for the 2019 Boston Marathon. The BAA is not going to make a change now to impact 2018, given that the qualifying window opened this past September.

Second, while the time under qualifying increased a bit from -1:28 to -2:20??, that was because the BAA gave out more unqualified (charity!) bibs than in the past. I forget the number, you can find it on here somewhere if you search. I think it was 1,000 bibs.

But overall, the racing population has declined. Less people are running. Eventually, the demand for Boston will be impacted and it is safer to keep things as is and selling out, than to tighten up the standards and have a race that does not sell out. (Because keep in mind, they would have to make a change now that impacts a race 2 years from now ... that is hard to predict).

I think it should be this.

Anyone sub 3:15 gets in, all the old walkers take up WAY to man spots in bawston

Just looked it up

Qualified entrants year by year with cutoff and percentage of qualified runners in the field:

2014: 22,679 (this was the year with the extra charity wave 4, in which the field size increased from 27,000 to 36,000) (1:38 cutoff)(84% qualified)

2015: 23,546 (out of 30,000) (1:02 cutoff) (78% qualified)

2016: 24,032 (out of 30,000) (2:28 cutoff) (80% qualified)

2017: 23,214 (out of 30,000) (2:09 cutoff) (77% qualified)

Not sure what the lost 818 bibs means in terms of cutoff. But the number this year was trending downward in terms of what the cutoff would have been had more qualified bibs been sold.

Nothing to dispute that next year the cutoff will be even lower. As such - no reason to adjust the qualifying marks at this time.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

I don't think the men's and women's times are equivalent at all. I wouldn't call 3:35 "easy" for women, but it's not the same as a men's 3:05. I think it should be closer to a 20 minute difference like the New York Marathon auto qualifying times. In that case, 3:25 for 18-35 women.

Amby Burfoot once wrote an article for RW about what an equal BQ time would be across the board based on statistics of finishers:

It was an interesting read.

As for changing times, there is a 0.0% chance the BAA would ever toughen the women's standard without touching the men's. They could give an announcement about percentages, scientific equivalents to standards ... it wouldn't matter. The social justice warriors of this world and people who want to write a trolling article for clicks would be all over this and it would result in one more stress that the BAA does not need to deal with.

Especially whne the system they have now ain't broken.

unlikely to change wrote:

Just looked it up

Qualified entrants year by year with cutoff and percentage of qualified runners in the field:

2014: 22,679 (this was the year with the extra charity wave 4, in which the field size increased from 27,000 to 36,000) (1:38 cutoff)(84% qualified)

2015: 23,546 (out of 30,000) (1:02 cutoff) (78% qualified)

2016: 24,032 (out of 30,000) (2:28 cutoff) (80% qualified)

2017: 23,214 (out of 30,000) (2:09 cutoff) (77% qualified)

Not sure what the lost 818 bibs means in terms of cutoff. But the number this year was trending downward in terms of what the cutoff would have been had more qualified bibs been sold.

Nothing to dispute that next year the cutoff will be even lower. As such - no reason to adjust the qualifying marks at this time.

Where did you look this up? I thought there were 32,500 entrants this year.

30,000 entrants

Runtofthelitter wrote:

Back in the Early 90's the mens standard was 2:45.

That is inaccurate.

For the 1988 Boston, the Men's Open published qualifying standard was 3:00. I know because I ran 3:01:05 fall 1987 and wrote a letter to the BAA requesting a waiver and it was granted. In 1989 or 1990 Boston went to 3:10 as the published standard for Men's Open. No +59 seconds, as far as I recall, but you could send a letter in if you just missed and they would make a judgement call. No chips back then so they had some leniency, as my 3:01:05 shows. I don't remember exactly when it went from 3:00 to 3:10 because I had a sub 3 in fall 1988 and spring 1989 so I would have gotten into Boston with either standard. It was 3:10 from 1988 or 1989 all through the 1990's until a couple years ago when they bumped it down to 3:05.

In 1987 I think it was 2:50 for Men's Open. I ran 3:12 in my debut fall 1986 and then ran Boston as a bandit April 1987 because I knew I was way too far off to try to submit an application. Not sure if it was lower than 2:50 at some point earlier than that.