2020 Boston Marathon Cancelled

I saw the front page about Boston and wanted to point a few things out.

Each of those years Boston was still small. 1919 only had 49 runners which were down from the 78 in previous years. Additionally, 1918 there was a relay race instead of a true marathon. For WWII numbers dropped into the low 70s from 130-140s people. 

The sheer number of trying to hold a 35,000 person race compared to under 200 is not a fair comparison.

I'm not sure why you think it's ridiculous? The reality is that stuff happens beyond the control of anyone. They can't double the field as they've said before around 36k is the max cap they can support, so what, around 5k more spots. Defer everyone from 2020 into 2021 and then let everyone that's qualified in the meantime fight it out for less than 5k spots? I think the fact that they are allowing those 2020 entrants to use their times for 2021 is pretty gracious already, especially if the cut the qualifying window in September.

Man this could've been written by me. These are all the same things I've been saying for weeks except forgot Atlanta, LA was run even later with no outbreaks as a result!

OK some back of napkin math:

2020 had 24,127 accepted runners and a cutoff time of 1:39

According to FindMyMarathon there were 46,333 qualifiers in 2020 and the BAA said they received 27,288 applications. That means 58.9 percent of qualifiers applied to run in 2020.

Assuming there will be no more qualifiers or races run in 2020 (a big if) there are currently 28,226 qualifiers for the 2021 Marathon.

There are some people from 2020 who just won't reapply. They no longer have the desire to train, or money to travel across world/country, are in jail, got hit by a bus, etc. 1 percent sounds fair. That's 241 runners.

There will also be a number of duplicates, people who had a 2020 time also had a 2021 time. Let's conservatively say 5 percent of the total. That's 2617 runners.

Let's also assume the field size will be increased. The towns will be hurting from the $200+ million in lost revenue from 2020, it's the 125th running, yadda yadda. Let's say they add another 6,000 runners. The field size was 31.5K this year. Another 6k would put it close to the 38.7K field for the 100th running.

58.9 percent of 28,226 is 16,626.

Crunching all those numbers leaves us with a grand total of 37,895 runners applying for about 30,100 spots.

If those numbers are accurate, and 7,795 people are on the outs, that would leave a BQ cutoff of about 4 minutes and 4 seconds.

Maybe we can hold it in Texas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Texas

Anyone know of other "Bostons" in the US?

new to the game wrote:

If those numbers are accurate, and 7,795 people are on the outs, that would leave a BQ cutoff of about 4 minutes and 4 seconds.

4:02 cushion here, so I'm sure this will be about right knowing my luck.

I disagree. This afternoon I ran the "virtual" Boston in 1:57:26. Also once scored four touchdowns in a game.

1. I give the B.A.A. 8 out of 10 for their decision on an impossible-to-please situation. Health and safety is above everything. I have run Boston since 2005 and I will happily take part in the virtual race, albeit knowing it isn't the real thing. My only beef with the B.A.A. is that I do think that Boston 2020 qualifiers should automatically be allowed into 2021 if they wish. I only qualified by 5 minutes this year and I am in serious doubt that will get me in for 2021.

2. Who is to say that Boston 2021 is a sure deal anyway? Back in March everyone thought a September Boston would be plenty of time for the coronavirus to be over and done with.

3. Context. Yes it is a bummer about the race. But I personally am thankful to God that my own health, job, family have not been affected by coronavirus, where so many are not as fortunate. I will not complain about missing a "real" Boston this year and possibly next year. Best to you all.

If the BAA is looking for suggestions (haha...I know they aren't), I have a couple:

Option #1

- Defer all 2020 participants to 2021

- Make the window for 2022 September 2019-March of 2020 AND whenever racing resumes again through September of 2020.

Option #2

- Take all registered applicants from September 2019-March of 2020 that are BQ -1:39 (the 2020 cut-off) and add them to the existing "2020" field and expand the race.

Option #1 is more feasible, and actually mirrors what Boston has done in the past..especially since we are going to have a "ghost window" of March 2020 through...who knows, where racing will not occur.

What happens when you defer everyone to 2021 and that one is cancelled as well? You can't keep deferring entry across calendar years. There will be races in between just no major events.

If two Boston marathons are canceled in consecutive years, then I believe we will have bigger issues than road races in our world. That's why I think my suggestion will work. I think this will be our only year it is deferred.

Or you just keep pushing it back. If Boston 2021 is deferred, I'm pretty sure that also means we would not have had any major road races since March of 2020.

This would be just splendid ... I'm -4:02.

LR's splash page reads:

"For the first time since its founding in 1897, the Boston Marathon has been cancelled in 2020."

Adding "in 2020" doesn't add clarity and should be omitted.

As it reads now, the race could have been cancelled a dozen times before, and it'd be the first tine it was "cancelled in 2020".

Chrisfilm wrote:

new to the game wrote:

If those numbers are accurate, and 7,795 people are on the outs, that would leave a BQ cutoff of about 4 minutes and 4 seconds.

4:02 cushion here, so I'm sure this will be about right knowing my luck.

Ha, same exact situation for me. I posted without seeing yours first.

And yes...full disclosure here...I was BQ -2:25. I ran the race of my life to get that (PR'd by about 17 minutes). This was essentially my one shot. The concept of simply eliminating a race I legitimately qualified for heart-breaking, frustrating, etc. To me, the rationale choice is to defer and alter qualifying periods for future races, especially since road racing in general is not happening. But again, I know that is rationale to me because of my personal situation.

Is this a typo? Should read 3:25? That's more than a half hour under the fastest BQ, so anything like that fitness should make future qualifiers a cake walk... even if they weren't rolling forward 2020 qualifiers to 2021.

RunnerHorn16 wrote:

And yes...full disclosure here...I was BQ -2:25. I ran the race of my life to get that (PR'd by about 17 minutes). This was essentially my one shot.

I meant I was 2 minutes 25 seconds under my mark for my age group. Yeah...if I could run 2:25 for a marathon, I wouldn't care about any of this!

wejo wrote:

Maybe we can hold it in Texas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston,_Texas

Anyone know of other "Bostons" in the US?

They're thirsty in Atlanta

and there's beer in Texarkana

new to the game wrote:

Yeah the cutoff is probably gonna be like 8 minutes now. UGGGH

Good - then I wouldn't have to worry about Hardloper's dumbarse being there.