Boston Marathon: Would you prefer that they have strict cutoffs and accept fewer people, or the current moving cutoffs?

I like the current approach. The fastest individuals relative to the standards get in, instead of those first to their keyboards on registration day.

They want the field to be limited to 23000 qualifiers, because in Hopkinton there is no space to accomodate more than 30.000 runners.

I’m OK with their current moving cutoffs.

1: tighten up the standards for women and older folks. doesn't have to be fully equal, but just less egregious.

2: disallow non OTQ eligible downhill courses (over 3.25 meters/km drop).

I get why they wouldn't want to do #1 (don't want a sausage fest and old people have more money to spend), but #2 is low hanging fruit.

Charlesvdw wrote:

They want the field to be limited to 23000 qualifiers, because in Hopkinton there is no space to accomodate more than 30.000 runners.

I’m OK with their current moving cutoffs.

38,000+ finishers in '96. The town survived without a scratch.

the steak wrote:

I like the current approach. The fastest individuals relative to the standards get in, instead of those first to their keyboards on registration day.

Why it stupid?

Faster doesn't mean more deserving or that they work harder. At all.

You must be one of the losers who got shut out a few years ago by the 1 day registration.

Go back to strict time stds

Boston is a circus these days

2:50 or under for the men

Or even faster

Make Boston Boston again.

Ezekiel bread wrote:

2:30 for men

3:00 for womyn

No more hobby joggers.

Both of those times are gonna be runners who are spending more than they're making on running, ergo hobbyjoggers. Very fast, talented, dedicated hobbyjoggers. But if you're a 2:30 man or a 3:00 woman, you're spending more than you're making, and it's a hobby.

tartarm wrote:

the steak wrote:

I like the current approach. The fastest individuals relative to the standards get in, instead of those first to their keyboards on registration day.

Why it stupid?

Faster doesn't mean more deserving or that they work harder. At all.

You must be one of the losers who got shut out a few years ago by the 1 day registration.

The 1 day registration was BS!!!

You think people who work harder deserve to get in over faster people? How about everyone submit their training log and BAA approves the harder worker.

Who cares if someone works harder? Life rewards you for results, not effort. Oh that's not fair. Guess what? Life's not fair.

Strongly disagree.

agdwgsfdaf wrote:

There seems to be a bit of controversy over this year's Boston entry. I guess you had to run a few minutes faster than the qualifying time to get in.

So my question is, would you rather have a fixed target (2:50 for young men, say), and allow fewer than 30,000 people to race; or would you rather have a moving target (3:00 which becomes 2:55 on race day) and fill it up to the max of 30,000?

Basically I don't understand the source of the controversy and animosity but I'm interested to hear arguments I haven't thought of.

Many people have proposed alternative solutions but in my opinion they all have flaws and are worse solutions. I do not want the person with the fastest keyboard and a job where they can take the time to register to have an advantage. Are we going to tell a firefighter that he/she must leave the fire to go register? No one will like that solution if it is their home on fire.

Other solutions have similar issues. It is unfortunate that someone can run a time in November and think it is good enough and then find out in late September they they missed the cut. Although statistically the cut-offs could be set so that it would be extremely rare to have a one day registration and all get in, it can never be 100% certain as long as the towns along the route limit the numbers and time for road closures.

Changing the times was a good idea but the main thing it does is make 2020 a BQ -55 seconds instead of minus 5 minutes and 55 seconds.

It does two other things which may or may not be considered significant by different people . It lets the minus 4:50 people know they didn't make it immediately instead of waiting until late September. It also impacts the streakers. They will have to meet a higher standard. Even though I am a streaker and one year got in with a minus 3:56, which would not have been good enough this year, I agree with the faster times for 2020.

Does that mean us fellas who make our goal race pikes peak each year would have an adjusted time for Boston too ??? I’ve always thought that would be cool if they adjusted times by course, let’s be real I’m not running 2:59 with 7800 feet of uphill.

Another idea is that they award races coins or X slots per race to qualify with just like how Ironmans work for world champs or Leadville 100 qualifiers work.

tartarm wrote:

the steak wrote:

I like the current approach. The fastest individuals relative to the standards get in, instead of those first to their keyboards on registration day.

Why it stupid?

Faster doesn't mean more deserving or that they work harder. At all.

You must be one of the losers who got shut out a few years ago by the 1 day registration.

I’ve never been shut out of any Boston marathon that I wanted to run. Nice projection.

I stated pretty clearly in my post that I’d rather have those further under the standard get in than those who register first. That’s my reasoning. Rewarding the clock vs the registration date.

Raider3817 wrote:

San Diego Hobby Jogger wrote:

Times should be adjusted by course elevation..do a stupid revel downhill mountain race, you should be required to run 1 min faster for every 100m of elevation loss. So.. revel big bear course need 2:45 to get in, while pancake flat Chicago 3:00. CIM and Boston would require 2:59

Can someone explain this to me, how does a course that starts at about 6,500 ft and ends at about 1,500 feet qualify you for Boston? I though there had to be a net gain or no net gain to count?

You are thinking of for a course to be record eligible, not to be a Boston Qualifier. That is why the Boston Marathon is not records eligible but it is a Boston Qualifier ?

Chillin wrote:

Raider3817 wrote:

Can someone explain this to me, how does a course that starts at about 6,500 ft and ends at about 1,500 feet qualify you for Boston? I though there had to be a net gain or no net gain to count?

You are thinking of for a course to be record eligible, not to be a Boston Qualifier. That is why the Boston Marathon is not records eligible but it is a Boston Qualifier ?

Those marathons are a joke, but it takes a certain skill to descend 5000 feet fast. What's the fastest time you see on Revel type courses? You never see sub-2:30. 2000 feet drop may be the sweet point.

the 'controversy,' to some, is that 7,384 runners who ran BQ times did not get in.

more than 7500 applied in the second week of registration... they accepted 220

hundreds of runners who beat their BQ standard by 4 minutes did not get in... i can imagine that is very frustrating

but the BAA does a great job. the system works just fine.

and they did the right thing by lowering the times by 5 minutes.

https://www.baa.org/2019-boston-marathon-qualifier-acceptances

3h for everyone regardless of age or sex. Have a 3h cut-off finishing time as well like they have at Comrades.

24-timer wrote:

the 'controversy,' to some, is that 7,384 runners who ran BQ times did not get in.

more than 7500 applied in the second week of registration... they accepted 220

The anger comes from the BAA rejecting those 7,300+ qualifiers and replacing then with 7,300 people who run 5:00+ and even 6:00+. They can handle the numbers; they want wealthy charity cases who are going to spend more money st the expo. They are less interested in running and more interested in maximizing profit.

money versus quality wrote:

24-timer wrote:

the 'controversy,' to some, is that 7,384 runners who ran BQ times did not get in.

more than 7500 applied in the second week of registration... they accepted 220

The anger comes from the BAA rejecting those 7,300+ qualifiers and replacing then with 7,300 people who run 5:00+ and even 6:00+. They can handle the numbers; they want wealthy charity cases who are going to spend more money st the expo. They are less interested in running and more interested in maximizing profit.

Those 7300 rejected for their time are just as capable of securing a charity entry.

In direct response-- my choice would be strict cutoffs, in that "this the the qualifying time; we won't leave you guessing." I can understand the anxiety the whole "what will the cutoff be?" situation made things the past few years.

Musings-- as others have said, it's BAA's event, and they have, and will continue to, allow entries as they see fit. There always have been back doors and side doors to get in. Yes, the more-dedicated and -talented want their performances rewarded, but BAA has made it more than a simple "You meet a high/higher performance standard, you're in" marathon.

freakin' moran wrote:

your an idiot wrote:

Wow your an idiot. If the cutoff time was moved up then people would train harder to meet those times. Supply and demand.

Wow, that's all it takes? So if we make the Olympic Trials standard 2:01 then we would have dozens of men breaking the recent world record!!! The 2:00 barrier is just a matter of changing our qualifying standards! What a solution!

Funny