The womens BQ standards are too easy to hit causing all of the men to have to overqualify by 5+ minutes currently.

The more people that qualify, the more booty there is!

https://media.giphy.com/media/AQz3wCDgDX3HO/giphy.gif

Some people find their soul mates during these events. Why should we stop them?

Old White Male. wrote:

The 2020 standards for women (specifically older women) needs to be tightened up by 5+mins per age group (leaving the mens times the same), i'm willing to be that the majority of the overqualifiers in Boston are older women running 3:40 - 4:15 easily making everyone else have to overqualify by X amount.

What do you guys think? What gender/age group standard has the most amount of overqualifers?

What will Boston do to correct this?

Women are underrepresented in US Congress, underrepresented as governors of US states, underrepresented as university presidents and it's only been about a dozen years since women have been able to compete in the same T&F events as men except decathlon in W.C. and Olympics. Run faster!

Or you could look at the data, but that would be work.

According to this paper qualifying times for older women are too hard.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e2cb/19a9be2f3a2ad2c05e00ebca2a30cc020e17.pdf

I kind of agree. Tired of seeing women in Instagram post their BQ triumphs, ringing the BQ bell and what have you, and it's like 3:44 at Revel or Mtns 2 Beach or something like that. Brutal. I ran a 3:03 last year and couldn't manage to make the cut. So yeah, Ill run a little faster and break 3 and get in, but still.....

Okay, so you prefer a weenie roast.

Tough titties. Life isn't fair, and as an old white guy you'd think you'd have learned it by now. You have it much better than the average person.

Start your own race with "fair" time standards and see who shows up.

A couple of people have nailed it- women have faced discrimination and misrepresentation for far too long & the stats don't even back up this claim. Let's not forget the history Boston has excluding women from the race & then not putting up prize money...

I'll add that I'm pretty sure Boston tries to get equal numbers across the boards. The times try to get the same amount of participants across the age groups. So it doesn't really matter if you think the women's times are soft. They're letting in X amount per age group. If the men's side is more competitive, you've got to find a way to get faster.

OP is a doucher but right, I'm part of a run club over 100+ people, of that entire group, near all of the women have qualified while maybe 3 of them actually managed to BQ and none of them actually were under 3:05 - the standard is just hard for men and too easy for women.

If you can't go BQ -20 you probably shouldn't be at the hobby jogger olympics.

There should also be no women at the olympics. Many other humans are better. Get good girls

Looking at last year’s stats for Boston qualifiers, men outnumbered women in every age group except for 18-35.

Overall, more men qualified than did women.

If you look at each category, it appears the 40-44 qualifying standard is spot on (not a large gap between men and women, and a fair number of qualifiers for a 5 year age category). Look at 45-49, and you might say the qualifying time for men needs to be dropped.

Of course, this is just one year’s stats. Should look at several years to make a better informed opinion.

http://raceday.baa.org/statistics.html

Quit complaining, the men's BQ standards aren't that hard to hit.

Also, think about this: a serious male runner who qualifes in say, 2:40, will probably get to start up front in the first corral. A women who runs an equivalent time would have to start several corrals back, if not in the second wave, and would have to spend the early miles weaving around hobby joggers who qualified in BS downhill marathons and bucket listers who slacked off on their training once they got in. Is that fair?

I actually think Boston is massively unfair to women of childbearing age. Women must deal with all the reasons men that might prevent them from running at Boston - injury, sickness, family obligations - and also pregnancy.

Pregnancy lasts nine months. I would say for an *average* women, it probably takes two years to regain the fitness to qualify for Boston if you are at all marginal after childbirth. Let's say 12 months at an absolute minimum to regain the fitness to COMPLETE Boston. I realize some women who run professionally and some women who are just amazing do it faster ,but that is NOT typical. It took me more than two years after my last pregnancy to get anywhere near pre-pregnancy fitness. Many women suffer injuries that take a LONG time to resolve. Pregnancy is no joke.

Now you can qualify for Boston 2019 between September 2017 and September 2018. Let's say you qualify for Boston in September 2017. You become pregnant in October 2017. Baby is born July 2018. That leaves 10 months to get in shape to complete the race - absolutely not enough time. So, you cannot qualify, become pregnant, and then compete.

So now let's consider the amount of time you must be pregnancy-free to compete in Boston. If you leave qualification until the last minute and qualify in September of 2018, you'll have had to have your baby no later than November of 2016, if you are a runner for whom qualifying presents some level of challenge. (For women who will never be good enough to qualify, or who are so good the qualifying times are not a factor, this discussion is obviously meaningless.) Therefore, in order to complete the race, you'll have to be pregnancy-free for 2.5 years.

Being pregnancy-free for 2.5 years actually means your children are 3.25 years apart. The vast majority of women have their children closer together than that. Let's say your typical woman Boston qualifier (higher than average socioeconomic status) has two kids 2.5 years apart starting at age 28. She's pregnant or recovering from pregnancy from age 27 until 32. No matter what timing she chooses, she loses at least 5 years of opportunity to qualify for Boston.

I would much rather Boston tighten qualifying times for women between 25 and 38 but give women in that age bracket the chance to defer a qualifier by up to three years.

I realize I'm addressing only one age bracket here, but I was mulling this in annoyance this morning as I contemplate another child and the havoc it'll wreak on my ability to run my next marathon.

Nonsense. The qualifying times for White middle aged men simply aren't difficult enough.

To ensure equal representation among non elites qualifying should be based getting into the quota for your race and sex. Not simply based on time. Therefore we should expect the required over qualifying standard for white 30/40 something males to be significantly harder.

Ask Caster Semenya as I think she has found a way around this.

BQious wrote:

Quit complaining, the men's BQ standards aren't that hard to hit.

Also, think about this: a serious male runner who qualifes in say, 2:40, will probably get to start up front in the first corral. A women who runs an equivalent time would have to start several corrals back, if not in the second wave, and would have to spend the early miles weaving around hobby joggers who qualified in BS downhill marathons and bucket listers who slacked off on their training once they got in. Is that fair?

On point two. Yes, it's fair. The fast women who finish in 2:45 also start in the first corral. The slower runners including men who qualify in 3:15 will run with people who are capable of the same pace. Don't tell me you want runners who run 3:35 in the first corral!

IMO, 45-49 men is the most unfair BQ. Unfair in that it is way too easy. Give the big 10 minute drop for the 50+ runners.

System's pretty fair wrote:

IMO, 45-49 men is the most unfair BQ. Unfair in that it is way too easy. Give the big 10 minute drop for the 50+ runners.

+1. I skimmed qualifier stats for the past five races, and men’s 45-49 is the only age group where you will find more qualifiers than the 5 year age group before it, and it is usually a significant jump. In comparison, the number of female qualifiers always drops from 40-44 to 45-49.

women at boston wrote:

I actually think Boston is massively unfair to women of childbearing age. Women must deal with all the reasons men that might prevent them from running at Boston - injury, sickness, family obligations - and also pregnancy.

As you note, pregnancy is one of many life events that can pause training for a year or more. What about battling a serious illness - cancer or the like? What about having to place life on hold to take care of an aging parent? Or mandatory military service in some countries? Or your mission, if you're Mormon? Do women who adopt get to defer in this way? And if so, shouldn't adoptive fathers also get that option?

I don't think one life event should pause the clock in a way that others don't. And I definitely don't think that the opportunity to defer should be offered to only those in one age bracket.

I respect your right to an opinion, but I strongly disagree with this.

I do not worry about other categories. It is only a game, if I can hit the time I need, nice, if not I refuse to complain about others. Again, only a game. No need for victim mentality.