Hey LR,
Over the years I've run a project called "the Boston Qualifier Questionnaire" (or BQQ for short) where I ask runners who've qualified for Boston a series of questions. Many, many runners from this forum have taken part. With the new year here, I thought I'd share a bit of what I've learned. You can read all the individual responses, (and submit your own!) here.
https://miloandthecalf.com/the-bq-questionnaire/
A warning before we get started -- this post contains discussion of body weight and its possible effect on qualifying. I want to be 100% clear that runners can qualify for Boston at a range of weights but feel that it is an important topic to discuss. If talk of body weight is triggering for you, you may wish to skip "The Vitals" section.
The Vitals.
I asked participants in the survey for some basic biological facts, including their height and weight. Runners came in all shapes and sizes from huge, like Michael H, to small, like Laura S.
If we can generalize, however, BQ runners tend to be lighter (for their height) than the average American and slightly shorter.
The average weight for male respondents was 157 pounds. The average height, 5’8”. For comparison, the average American male is (allegedly, these statistics may be inaccurate) approximately 5'9 and thirty three pounds heavier (190 pounds).
The story is similar for women — remarkably so in the weight differential. The average respondent is roughly 5’4” and weighs 125.4 pounds. By comparison, the average American woman is approximately 5’ 4” but weighs about 33 pounds more (159 pounds).
On a personal note, I’m six feet tall and currently weigh about 175 pounds. That puts me about fifteen pounds heavier than the average six foot respondent. Clearly, I have work to do on the weight front.
Training
Alright, enough height and weight. Let’s get down to what really matters — the training.
Most runners had been running for less than six years before they first qualified, and had run less than ten thousand miles when they qualified. Of course, there are outliers, like pro-runner Sage Canady, who’d been running a relatively short amount of time, but racked up some serious miles, or John who’d been running for over twenty years before he qualified.
For mileage in the year before the race, there appears to be a fair amount of consistency across the responses. Almost no runners ran under 1,000 miles, and few ran above 2,500. The average is the difficult, but not unreasonable, standard of 1,750 miles.
On a personal note, the only year I ran that much was the year I set my marathon PR. Clearly, mileage matters.
No surprise that for most of us, it takes more than miles to qualify. The vast majority (84% of those who answered the question) say that speed work played a role.
While the vast majority of respondents used speed work in their training, the majority of runners (about 60%) didn’t use a canned program.
Similarly, the majority (64%) of runners didn’t run with a coach or club, nor did they engage in cross training.
Finally, when I started doing this, I wondered if there was a correlation between a background in running, such as those afforded by high school and college teams, and getting a BQ. As this is still a small, and self-selected group, it’s hard to know. But what we do know is that the majority (63%) of respondents did not run either in college or high school.
Some quick takeaways.
What can we take away from these results? Here are some initial thoughts, most of which are obvious. I’ll be curious to hear your thoughts in the comments.
You need to put in the miles – very, very few of the respondents did this on low mileage.
You need to do speed work – similarly, the vast majority of runners utilized some form of speed work.
People with lots of different body weights and compositions can BQ, but Boston Marathon Qualifiers tends to be lighter than the average American.
Getting a BQ happened to most respondents early in their running lives, usually after having run only for five or so years, and less than 10,000 miles.
What I've learned from surveying almost 400 runners who've qualified for Boston
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Good analysis of how the average BQ qualifier trains. I'd been expecting most of the results, such as running a good amount of miles (1750 mpy=40 mpw), and incorporating speedwork into training. Anything more than that would equal overtraining and injury, and anything less would not have enough training for the runner to qualify. Even the most talented of runners will need to put in a few miles to make Boston. I wonder if there's any outliers in the survey, such as individuals who hadn't trained at all who qualified for Boston. Thanks for the in depth analysis.
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Thanks for the kind words. There are a couple of people who are clearly just super talented and BQ'ed with little training, like Clara who only ran 500 miles. https://miloandthecalf.com/2013/06/12/the-bqq-clara/
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miloandthecalf wrote:
By comparison, the average American woman is approximately 5’ 4” but weighs about 33 pounds more (159 pounds).
The country is going to hell in a hand basket. -
What's an "almost 400" runner? 300m hurdles? 400y dash?
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Bump, major bump
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"While the vast majority of respondents used speed work in their training, the majority of runners (about 60%) didn’t use a canned program.
Similarly, the majority (64%) of runners didn’t run with a coach or club, nor did they engage in cross training."
This is interesting. In theory, perhaps 40% used a canned program, and 36% had a coach or club, leaving 24% having neither. I wonder how much overlap there is.
If you don't have a canned program or coach, how do you decide what to run? Do people instead create their own training plan? Or do they just go out and run what they're in the mood for that day?
(I always used a canned program. I'm a Pfitzinger fan, but I've been reading a Hanson's books lately.) -
Regarding weight and height, it would be useful if you turned that data into BMI.
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Fun to read through all of this -- thanks for putting it all together.
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It’s pretty remarkable that we’ve gotten to a place where a statement like “marathoners tend not to be fat” needs to come with a trigger warning.
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Interesting, thanks! I line up fairly well with what you said.
I BQed, in my second running life- after running when I was younger and getting back into it. I knew how to train and put together my own schedule. The time for qualifying was actually pretty easy, it's just hip cramps made it hard after about 12 miles, but made the time with a little time to spare.
I was putting in 40-50 mpw and am 130/5' 7". I'll probably never run one again because they are hard on the body to train for and run/race, and I'm 60 now-but the time would be even easier than last time! :) -
I am definitely interested in adding BMI. If someone better at excel than I wants to write a script for that, please get in touch!
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arunnerinwa wrote:
"While the vast majority of respondents used speed work in their training, the majority of runners (about 60%) didn’t use a canned program.
Similarly, the majority (64%) of runners didn’t run with a coach or club, nor did they engage in cross training."
This is interesting. In theory, perhaps 40% used a canned program, and 36% had a coach or club, leaving 24% having neither. I wonder how much overlap there is.
If you don't have a canned program or coach, how do you decide what to run? Do people instead create their own training plan? Or do they just go out and run what they're in the mood for that day?
(I always used a canned program. I'm a Pfitzinger fan, but I've been reading a Hanson's books lately.)
I made my own plan based on a bunch of canned plans I read over. I read through 4-5 canned plans and pulled pieces from each of them to create a plan that fit my ability and lifestyle. I basically had 3 "required" runs a week (weekend long run of 14-20 miles, mid week 8-12 miler, and a tempo workout of some type) and filled in the rest of the week with 3-4 easy runs. It gave me flexibility on easy run days to run on feel. I do coach XC, so I have experience writing plans, the distance was just different this time. -
Interesting post. I agree that BMI information would be more informative as it would help to somewhat normalize weight across different heights. Additionally, I think it would be interesting to use other statistical analyses besides a simple average. I think that it would be most interesting if you used median mileage for those qualifying for Boston and provided the standard deviation and/or interquartile range. I think that will be the most telling as it should help you to eliminate those outliers that you speak of. This should be fairly easy assuming that you have the data in some sort of excel file already.
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Found your online database (thanks for publishing). I did some quick back of the napkin math and it looks like for mileage that the median weekly mileage for those reporting numbers (excluding the person reporting zero miles and the other reporting 14,000 miles - both of which seem unlikely and obvious outliers) was 1,600 miles with a standard deviation of +/- 770 miles. Additionally the inner quartile range is approximately 1,170 to 2,122 miles.
Thanks again for providing this info! It is really interesting. -
This stuff is interesting to read through. Thank you for sharing. Curious if you've broken any of this information down into charts or graphs by gender/age, etc.
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Weight and mileage are highly correlated.
Heck age and mileage are highly correlated, not surprised at all by these numbers.
The only thing that strikes me as interesting is that only 38% of BQ are former competitive runners when they were in school. -
Sent you a request for permission to edit to add BMI...
but the formula is =0.453592*E4/((0.0254*D4)^2) if you don't want a random editing it -
Out of the 400:
398 plan to purchase a "Boston Jacket"
7 plan to purchase and wear "Boston Qualifier" t-shirt
387 ran within 3 minutes (faster) of the time the needed to qualify -
There's a number of posts with graphics available here:
https://miloandthecalf.com/2016/01/05/data-analysis-of-the-boston-qualifier-questionnaire-part-i-overview/
