Boston Marathon BQ times under REVIEW for 2016

Every mediocre, non-fat female runner I know can easily qualify for Boston. It's so easy for chicks to qualify, but most don't have the balls (lol) to put forth the miniscule amount of effort required to do so.

by underrepresented, what exactly do you mean? a lower percentage than the overall population? if they did the work, they'd get the qt. if they have other priorities, why give all kinds of unqualified people the shot. affirmative action has the express mission of giving qualified people a chance who otherwise would be excluded for irrational reasons. a weak qualifying time should not be further weakened.

If the difference in time betwen the Mens WR and the Womens WR for the marathon is only 12 minutes (and some change) then why is there a 30 minute difference for BQ times?

The fact is that women doing marathons (and halfs) is growing exponential faster than men..

BAA probably won't address this because they would probably be labeled as "sexist".

Women's qualifying standards are ridiculously easy anyway.

BAA Rumor Mill wrote:

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

but women out-numbered men in the 18-39 category?

i'd argue over-represented

BAAbaablacksheep wrote:

BAA Rumor Mill wrote:

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

but women out-numbered men in the 18-39 category?

i'd argue over-represented

exactly - in the 18-39 women were 55%. makes no sense to ease up that.

if they ease up anything , it would be masters women - in the 55-59, it was 76% men

unless they want 50/50 so they will let as many young women into boston as it takes until they get it. In other words, keep lowering standards for young women until the overall numbers are 50/50.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

by underrepresented, what exactly do you mean?

My understanding is that the BAA tries to get a representative sample across age and gender based on the total population of people who complete marathons. Thus, if 6% of marathon finishers are F40-44, they want the qualifying such that they get about 6% of their entrants from F40-44, and so forth.

but most women runners just jog for their health, whereas among men there is a significant population that go very hard for times, so that's a problematic way of setting qualifying standards.

agip wrote:

exactly - in the 18-39 women were 55%. makes no sense to ease up that.

if they ease up anything , it would be masters women - in the 55-59, it was 76% men

During the lead up to the last change in BAA qualifying standards, I remember seeing and article arguing that the female under 40 times were soft and that the female masters times were difficult, more so with progressively older age groups. As I recall, they favored a scheme based on the WMA age and gender grading tables.

women 18-45 spend the most amount of money on stupid crap at the expo. Thus, they are rewarded with an easier BQ.

Going off age-graded times, the women's 18-34 qualifier should be 3:20 to be comparable to the men's. But I guess we're going in the opposite direction.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

but most women runners just jog for their health, whereas among men there is a significant population that go very hard for times, so that's a problematic way of setting qualifying standards.

It's the BAA's race, so they get to define the objectives and use their definition of "fair". Perhaps if you can propose a way to select "people who are trying hardest" or some such, they'd consider it. It's not obvious to me how one would do that or whether it would be good for the sport.

Old Man Runner wrote:

If the difference in time betwen the Mens WR and the Womens WR for the marathon is only 12 minutes (and some change) then why is there a 30 minute difference for BQ times?

First of all, WR can be an outlier. Women's WR is 3 minutes faster than the 2nd all time. Men's #2 is only 16 sec. behind.

Second, it makes more sense to compare the percentage difference than the absolute time.

At #10, women's time is 12.1% slower than men. It is 12.4% at #20, 13% at #50, 13.4% at #100, 14% at #150 and 14.3% at #200. It seems the difference keeps getting bigger as we move down the list.

The current BQ for 18-34 is 16.2% slower for women. If we take 12.1%, women's BQ for 18-34 will be 3:27:23. At 14.3%, it is 3:31:27.

Citizen Runner wrote:

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

but most women runners just jog for their health, whereas among men there is a significant population that go very hard for times, so that's a problematic way of setting qualifying standards.

It's the BAA's race, so they get to define the objectives and use their definition of "fair". Perhaps if you can propose a way to select "people who are trying hardest" or some such, they'd consider it. It's not obvious to me how one would do that or whether it would be good for the sport.

That's a classic straw man argument. You set a hard qualifying time and you'll only get people "trying hard."

Edward Pencil---- wrote:

women 18-45 spend the most amount of money on stupid crap at the expo. Thus, they are rewarded with an easier BQ.

Ding, Ding, Ding!!!! Winner...

GaryB wrote:

Edward Pencil---- wrote:

women 18-45 spend the most amount of money on stupid crap at the expo. Thus, they are rewarded with an easier BQ.

Ding, Ding, Ding!!!! Winner...

^^This.

I still can't believe people care. Boston is interesting if you're fast (~2:25) because there's so many racers. If you're a marginal BQ then it's just the same as any other big city marathon.

Hey, you put in words exactly my thoughts. No desire to run it. So many other good races to run without the hassles.