Why don't they just increase the size of the race? I've never understood the reason for staying around 30k people when the other WMM are so much bigger:
Chicago 2017: 44,508 Finishers
Boston 2017: 30,074 Started
NYC 2017: 50,641 Finishers
London 2017: 39,487 finishers
Tokyo 2017: 35,911 Started
Berlin 2018: 44,389 Started
Get your act together Boston - If you had a standard then stick to it. Makes no sense.
24-timer wrote:
... and they did the right thing by lowering the times by 5 minutes.
The average cut-off time has been increasing by 58 seconds over the last 5 years. So the 2020 cut off will probably be BQ-50 seconds.
If they wanted all qualified runners to gain entry, they should have lowered the times by 10 minutes, not 5 minutes
If you've run the race you know that the first several miles, the road is basically as wide as your driveway. There are only so many people that can fit. Logistics. The other marathons you mention are on WIDE roads the entire time, not a country lane for the first quarter of the race.
I am genuinely interested to see how the Nike Vaporfly effected qualification percentages. There is an article stating that they crunched the #'s on every single strava profile registered with Vaporflys and of those accounts they were on average MINUTES faster in the full marathon.
I liked it when everyone wanting to run Boston needed to run a qualifying time. Do it and you're in, don't do it and you aren't, no exceptions. But it's their race and they get to do what they want with it and really I don't care.
I'm okay with all things Boston. Most people qualify to get in and the standards have tightened because they do not have enough slots. I like equal number of men/women getting in. I like the work the charity runners do to get in. Boston is a brand and is one of the best marathon experiences out there on race day.
What would be cool would be a fast/flat qualify only race for something like sub-2:40 men & sub-3:00 women to give that crop of runners a chance to go for a fast time with guaranteed competition. Something like Fukuoka or Osaka. That would be dope.
Nope wrote:
If they wanted all qualified runners to gain entry, they should have lowered the times by 10 minutes, not 5 minutes
They don't. Because they won't fill the field. And then filling the field will require another round, and that's a waste of time and stupid. The current system is the most logical system when you have (1) multilevel cutoff and (2) more demand than spots.
The simplest solution when demand outstrips supply is to raise prices. Charge $300, $400, $500 for an entry or whatever price it takes to get qualified registrations to match available spots.
If the B.A.A. feels bad about making too much money, they can give the excess to charity, or spend more on course logistics and amenities.
Go Long wrote:
If you've run the race you know that the first several miles, the road is basically as wide as your driveway. There are only so many people that can fit. Logistics. The other marathons you mention are on WIDE roads the entire time, not a country lane for the first quarter of the race.
Um ... ever heard of chip times?
The road may be narrow and it may take a long time for some people to cross the line but there is plenty of road to extend the field backwards.
The current system seems to be the best system given the constraints they're working with. A moving cut-off may be frustrating for people, but it gives the organizers max flexibility to fill up the field in a reasonably meritocratic way.
A strict cut-off would result in too few qualifiers some years and too many qualifiers in other years. And then you have the same problem.
dork_rothko wrote:
Nope wrote:
If they wanted all qualified runners to gain entry, they should have lowered the times by 10 minutes, not 5 minutes
They don't. Because they won't fill the field. And then filling the field will require another round, and that's a waste of time and stupid. The current system is the most logical system when you have (1) multilevel cutoff and (2) more demand than spots.
Agree that the current system is "butts in seats"
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=butts%20in%20seatsWhat was wrong with the system they used for the first 100 years?
Chipper! wrote:
Go Long wrote:
If you've run the race you know that the first several miles, the road is basically as wide as your driveway. There are only so many people that can fit. Logistics. The other marathons you mention are on WIDE roads the entire time, not a country lane for the first quarter of the race.
Um ... ever heard of chip times?
The road may be narrow and it may take a long time for some people to cross the line but there is plenty of road to extend the field backwards.
People can fit with a 4th wave, like they did in 2014.
Nope wrote:
dork_rothko wrote:
They don't. Because they won't fill the field. And then filling the field will require another round, and that's a waste of time and stupid. The current system is the most logical system when you have (1) multilevel cutoff and (2) more demand than spots.
Agree that the current system is "butts in seats"
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=butts%20in%20seatsWhat was wrong with the system they used for the first 100 years?
Demand and field size.
I don't understand what the discussion even is here.
If they were to go to a hard and fast BQ (everyone who BQs gets in), then they won't be able to control the field size, and far fewer non-charity runners will get to run. Meaning, more charity runners will run.
BAA has two objectives: (1) maintain qualifying standard format and (2) fill 30K spots in the most logical, fairest, easiest way possible. The current system accomplishes both. Everyone who's arguing for "a BQ should mean BQ" doesn't seem to understand this. Arguing that BAA should just be happy if the (more elite) field is 17K runners total is stupid and nonsensical.
much easier fix wrote:
FFF wrote:
Moving?
The BQ's need to be faster, across the board. Fewer people then, obviously.
If they just cut the damn charity cases then the numbers would go down by thousands immediately. There was never a problem with numbers until 1996, the first year non-qualifiers got in.
Non qualifiers were in way before 1996. Goes at least back to the early 70's
Do they still allow you automatic entry into the next year if you qualify but don't get in this year?
For example, you run a 3:22:36 to "qualify" for the 2020 Boston Marathon (your BQ is 3:30). But due to the cut-down, you don't make it in. You have an automatic spot in 2021, right?
Gega wrote:
Do they still allow you automatic entry into the next year if you qualify but don't get in this year?
For example, you run a 3:22:36 to "qualify" for the 2020 Boston Marathon (your BQ is 3:30). But due to the cut-down, you don't make it in. You have an automatic spot in 2021, right?
No. They used to do that? Seems silly.
Instead of moving the qualifying times so nobody knows what they need to run, why don't they have moving charity amounts? They can say you need to raise $3,000, but that can become $3,250 if too many people meet the $3,000 standard. All those who only raised between $3,000 & $3,249 will get rejected despite meeting the original established dollar amount.
thinking outside the charity box wrote:
Instead of moving the qualifying times so nobody knows what they need to run, why don't they have moving charity amounts? They can say you need to raise $3,000, but that can become $3,250 if too many people meet the $3,000 standard. All those who only raised between $3,000 & $3,249 will get rejected despite meeting the original established dollar amount.
B/c they had ~29K BQers apply this year. They want more than 1000 charity spots.
How about the fastest 30,000 times submitted get in that year, period; some older folks would make it and more women now run marathons and halves than Tom Robinsons.
Drop the registration fee just a bit from the current stratospheric level and provide a charity box option to check on each registration form.
Didn't they have a 2:45 qualification time for men in the 80ies and 90ies?
If you ask me. 2:30 for men and 2:45 for women. Keep the riff raff out of Boston.