How many people who ran the 2008 Boston Marathon were actual qualifiers?
How many people who ran the 2008 Boston Marathon were charity or other entries?
How many people who ran the 2008 Boston Marathon were actual qualifiers?
How many people who ran the 2008 Boston Marathon were charity or other entries?
And how many qualified and ran for a charity.
Not that I trust the NY Times 100%, but this article says 1275. That is 0.5%. It seems like a lot more. I ran Boston on a corporate sponsorship deal and was back in the back with the TNT and Dana Farber group at the start. It was a sea of purple.
There are also corporate sponsors that get slots.
Some of the above charity runners may also have qualified so take that as a high number.
luv2run wrote:
Not that I trust the NY Times 100%, but this article says 1275. That is 0.5%. It seems like a lot more. I ran Boston on a corporate sponsorship deal and was back in the back with the TNT and Dana Farber group at the start. It was a sea of purple.
There are also corporate sponsors that get slots.
Some of the above charity runners may also have qualified so take that as a high number.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/health/nutrition/24Best.html?ex=1366776000&en=db6bf369e9bb6875&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
I think that's 5%.
I can't provide a reference, but I've heard that about 10% are "non-qualified entrants", which would include the charity runners and comps to the various sponsor and support organizations. If the NYT article is correct, that would mean approximately 5% charity runners, 5% comp runners, and 90% qualified runners in a field of 25,000.
I think only 7 or 8 thousand were qualified.. the others were charity. I'm sure if you surf the BAA website you can find out.
I think So... wrote:
I think only 7 or 8 thousand were qualified.. the others were charity. I'm sure if you surf the BAA website you can find out.
one of my friends had bib 187XX - she ran a 3:49(?) to qualify
This is a good question.
At Boston, someone not associated with the race but who knows a lot about the sport told me it was actually 50/50. I was shocked to hear it, so I'd like more discussion of this.
I guess one way might be to break down the actual marathon times from the race and compare them to the qualifying standards. Sure some people may get injured, be in not as great of shape when the qualified but give everyone even a 20 minute window for the age/demographics and see what % of the finishers likely were qualifiers.
I think So... wrote:
I think only 7 or 8 thousand were qualified.. the others were charity. I'm sure if you surf the BAA website you can find out.
I know that a 3:10 qualifier put you in the 5000+ bib range, so I'm pretty sure the number of qualifiers was much higher that 7-8 thousand. And according to BAA, The Boston Marathon Charity Program enables selected charitable organizations to raise millions of dollars for worthwhile causes. In 2007, approximately 1,200 participants, representing 21 charities, raised more than $10 million". I would think that the "comp" entries are less than the number of charity runners.
Citizen Runner wrote:
If the NYT article is correct, that would mean approximately 5% charity runners, 5% comp runners, and 90% qualified runners in a field of 25,000.
Don't forget the small number of runners who get the celebrity exemption. I don't mind charity runners, but if you are a celeb you should have to qualify just like Lance.
Give a shout to the people at marathonguide.com. They have a database (I think) of marathon results from the past several years. If they are deft, they could do a cross reference of Boston finishers and their best time from the past couple of years. Something tells me they wouldn't want to do that, though.
I haven't gotten full databases from them in several years, but the number of charity entries was always around 1000-1500. They also have a few hundred "sponsor" entries and a few hundred more for each of the clubs and civic organizations that provide volunteers.
If you look at:
http://www.twincitytc.org/Resources/MarathonStatistics/tabid/117/Default.aspx
which is a bit dated, you will see that the percentage of people that run Boston that requalify runs less than 50%. My other runs on the numbers from more recent years seem to confirm that the profile (at Boston) hasn't changed all that much. Other races are still creeping towards the geezer side for men, with the majority of "young" being female.
Now my stats aren't the +20 minutes range as you stated, but I know I didn't requalify when I ran, but it was only 3 minutes off. I know many people in the same boat.
I have, but didn't include, the 1996 statistics because of the lottery and all the other things that skew the stats so badly.
OK, I cross referenced some times, starting with a woman I know in town. She is 35 and had a number in the 17000s. What I seem to have found is:
Everyone with a bib number 21xxx and below has a qualifying time. Lots of older folks here.
Everyone with a bib number 22xxx does not.
That was supposed to say 'Everyone with bib number 22xxx and above does not.'
After even more digging, it looks like quite full corrals for 22xxx, 23xxx, 24xxx, 25xxx, and most of 26xxx. So that looks like close to 5000 runners behind the officially qualified runners. Modulo a few celebrity and other dignitaries. Of course, some of those charity runners may be legitimate Team in Training (or other) coaches who have qualifying times.
Marathonguide.com is indeed a good source. Here you learn that anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of Boston runners re-qualify in any given year, depending on the heat. The thing is: How do you interpret this particular stat? Pretty hard to say.
Before Boston, I checked the BAA entrants list for all runners with last name XYZ. In this case, there were 15 runners. Then I worked backwards to marathonguide.com, and looked to see how many of these 15 had qualifying times. I came up with 7.
Of course 15 is a very small sample. At the same time, 7/15 is a low percent.
I'm guessing that at least 30 to 40 percent don't qualify. That's 8,000 runners--a number that would surprise many. Yes, the BAA acknowledges 1250 "charity" runners. But no one asks about "invited" runners.
The Boston Marathon is the BAA's race, and they can do what they damn well please. And what they want to do is the same as every other marathon: fill hotel rooms and restaurants, etc. That's not a crime. Still, I think they ought to come clean. If 1250 is the only number they're willing to go public with, then there's a bit of a cover-up going on.
This is the most bizarre post I've seen in a while. You selected 15 runners out of 25,000 and based a thesis around it?Explain this to me. If the BAA reserves 40% of its slots for nonqualified runners, why are there available slots for qualified runners into March for a race that takes place in April? Since Boston is the "ultimate marathon goal" and approximately 20% of people running marathons qualify for Boston, wouldn't the available slots fill up faster if the entries were limited? And if BAA reserved no slots at all for the race, wouldn't hotel rooms and restaurants still fill up? Are you saying Boston wouldn't attract 25,000 qualified runners a year? I don't follow your logic on that statement at all.
Boston or busted wrote:
Marathonguide.com is indeed a good source. Here you learn that anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of Boston runners re-qualify in any given year, depending on the heat. The thing is: How do you interpret this particular stat? Pretty hard to say.
Before Boston, I checked the BAA entrants list for all runners with last name XYZ. In this case, there were 15 runners. Then I worked backwards to marathonguide.com, and looked to see how many of these 15 had qualifying times. I came up with 7.
Of course 15 is a very small sample. At the same time, 7/15 is a low percent.
I'm guessing that at least 30 to 40 percent don't qualify. That's 8,000 runners--a number that would surprise many. Yes, the BAA acknowledges 1250 "charity" runners. But no one asks about "invited" runners.
The Boston Marathon is the BAA's race, and they can do what they damn well please. And what they want to do is the same as every other marathon: fill hotel rooms and restaurants, etc. That's not a crime. Still, I think they ought to come clean. If 1250 is the only number they're willing to go public with, then there's a bit of a cover-up going on.
The basic problem here is that none of us have very good information to go on. For example, 15 runners is a lousy sample indeed, but it's a "random" sample, and 53 percent of them were unqualified. If you happen to think that Boston has only 10 percent unqualified runners, then you'd be hard pressed to pick any random sample of 15 and get 53 percent unqualified.
*** The generally accepted "average" stat for Boston qualifiers is 10 percent per marathon, not 20. Very significant difference.
*** The 2002 Boston Marathon had 16,939 starters, so it has grown almost 50 percent since then. Except for Ryan Hall and a few notables, American marathoners have NOT been getting faster since 2002, as we all seem to recognize. And Boston doesn't get a big international field like NYC. So where are the 8000 new qualifiers coming from?
*** This year there were stories of qualified runners who couldn't get into Boston towards the end because its field size was reached before the expected calendar cutoff date. You can believe that this happened: (A) because Boston let more charity/invited runners in; or (B) because a lot of people ran really fast in the 2007 Chicago meltdown and boosted the ranks of Boston qualifiers. Sorry for the sarcasm. I don't know which it was, but I'm going with (A).
Check out this recent article that was posted on MarathonGuide.com (http://www.marathonguide.com/races/BostonMarathonQualifyingRaces.cfm). It actually gives you the answers to the questions you were posing. It also mentions a great smaller marathon, the Steamtown Marathon (www.SteamtownMarathon.com), that is located in my hometown of Scranton, Pa. Anyway, hope this helps.
-Shawn
Boston or busted wrote:
*** The generally accepted "average" stat for Boston qualifiers is 10 percent per marathon, not 20. Very significant difference.
*** The 2002 Boston Marathon had 16,939 starters, so it has grown almost 50 percent since then. Except for Ryan Hall and a few notables, American marathoners have NOT been getting faster since 2002, as we all seem to recognize. And Boston doesn't get a big international field like NYC. So where are the 8000 new qualifiers coming from?
In 2007 there were about 80,000 more marathon finishers than in 2002. If 10% BQ, there's your 8000 runners. American runners don't have to get faster to have more Boston qualifiers if they are becoming more numerous, older (slower qualifying times), and consisting of an increasing population of females, all of which are clear trends amoung recreational runners.
http://www.marathonguide.com/features/Articles/2007RecapOverview.cfmFrom the Boston Marathon site...
"The qualifying window for the 2009 Boston Marathon will begin on September 29, 2007."
If you are looking at one specific Boston Marathon, you can't just look at one calendar year of qualifiers, since the qualifying window for the Boston Marathon is more than a year long. For example... There could be several properly qualified entrants in next year's (2009) Boston Marathon who will have run their qualifier in 2007. They then will not appear in the overall 2008 marathon statistics. Some could even run their qualifier in 2009, so you really have, at minimum, a 16 month window to find your qualifiers. For this year's race, wouldn't you have to look at the number of people who ran a BQ between September 29, 2006 and the day registration closed to see how big the BQ pool was? But then you might not really know how big that pool is if these statistics are looking at times and not individuals (one person can run a BQ twice or more in a calendar year and/or the qualifying window).
Also - seeing as Boston is an international marathon with entrants from all over the world, and the statistics on Marathon Guide are for USA (at least the ones I have looked at), are we not failing to take into account people who qualify outside USA borders? Not a huge percentage of the entrants I would guess, but you do have to take that into account. Aren't the stats, at least on marathonguide.com, on marathons run in the USA? For example, a USA citizen who runs a qualifying time in Canada wouldn't show up in those statistics, correct? (I noticed the Ottawa Marathon is listed on the BAA website as a commonly used qualifying race.) In other words, your pool isn't exclusively made of people who have qualified in USA marathons.
I guess what I am saying is, I don't know the answer to "how many people who run in the Boston Marathon have actually qualified for the race?" I'm saying we need to look at the BAA's records to know that for sure.