2020 Boston Marathon Cut Off Predictions

Sesamoiditis wrote:

How would the Trials have much of an effect on this? I don't now about women but this year there were only 12 Americans who ran under the standard at Boston. Many who were close to the standard skipped Boston to go to a faster course like Grandmas and if they failed might run Boston next year. I would say the trials may leave out a about 20 American men from the race. Some of those will be replaced by foreign runners in the elite field. Are you saying that overall more people ran BQ marathons in the past year because they were tying to qualify for the Trials?

There were already 400+ runners who qualified for Trials as of January (per Runner's World). Those runners I'm figuring will not be running Boston in April, as they'll be running Atlanta in late February.

Now, maybe more international runners will run Boston compared to past years as they see an easier road to victory with top Americans out. But I doubt it. In the end, it should help ease the cut as they'll be 500 open spots for qualifiers compared to past years.

5kPace wrote:

There were already 400+ runners who qualified for Trials as of January (per Runner's World). Those runners I'm figuring will not be running Boston in April, as they'll be running Atlanta in late February.

Now, maybe more international runners will run Boston compared to past years as they see an easier road to victory with top Americans out. But I doubt it. In the end, it should help ease the cut as they'll be 500 open spots for qualifiers compared to past years.

You are assuming that everyone that qualified for the trials will run the trials, and also that everyone that qualified for the trials would have run Boston if not for the trials.

Those are two terrible assumptions.

What I'm saying is that a majority of those 400 runners wouldn't run Boston anyway. Maybe 10% of them would run and some of those 40 runners who would be in the elite field will be replaced by international runners. John Hancock can probably get four Kenyans for the price of Galen Rupp.

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

5kPace wrote:

There were already 400+ runners who qualified for Trials as of January (per Runner's World). Those runners I'm figuring will not be running Boston in April, as they'll be running Atlanta in late February.

Now, maybe more international runners will run Boston compared to past years as they see an easier road to victory with top Americans out. But I doubt it. In the end, it should help ease the cut as they'll be 500 open spots for qualifiers compared to past years.

You are assuming that everyone that qualified for the trials will run the trials, and also that everyone that qualified for the trials would have run Boston if not for the trials.

Those are two terrible assumptions.

Assuming they WOULD have run Boston is a terrible assumption. I'll give you that. But if you're a marathon runner and you're running the kind of times that qualify you for Trials, I think it's safe to say you're going to take a shot at running the trials and not throw away that opportunity. I don't know many people that happen to run a Trial time in America without it being a goal.

Sesamoiditis wrote:

5kPace wrote:

There were already 400+ runners who qualified for Trials as of January (per Runner's World). Those runners I'm figuring will not be running Boston in April, as they'll be running Atlanta in late February.

Now, maybe more international runners will run Boston compared to past years as they see an easier road to victory with top Americans out. But I doubt it. In the end, it should help ease the cut as they'll be 500 open spots for qualifiers compared to past years.

What I'm saying is that a majority of those 400 runners wouldn't run Boston anyway. Maybe 10% of them would run and some of those 40 runners who would be in the elite field will be replaced by international runners. John Hancock can probably get four Kenyans for the price of Galen Rupp.

True about not having an intent on running Boston. And if thats the case, that the BQ rates are being impacted by a large base of runners trying to get their Trial time (with no intent of falling back and running Boston if they don't get them). That was the second piece of my argument.

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

The guesses I see so far are:

3.:20

2:30

1:01

1:00

It's highly likely all four are underestimating.

Taking the largest of those guesses (3:20) would mean the time needed to qualify will have dropped by a whopping 3:28 from 2019's race given last year's 4:52 cutoff and 2020's 5:00 qualifying reduction. I don't think this is highly likely and rather think it's extremely unlikely.

The cutoff times certainly are trending lower -- looking back from 2015, the cutoffs have been 1:02, 2:28, 2:09, 3:23 and 4:52, giving year-to-year deltas of 1:26, -19s, 1:14 and 1:29 for an average of 57s. Extrapolating this to next year and assuming, in spite of the tightened standards, a higher number of qualifying runners (due to VF4%, continuing increased interest in Boston, a generally more active population, and mostly the proliferation of downhill courses), I'll predict the delta relative to 2019's cutoff will be 1:45, for an actual 2020 cutoff of 1:37.

I'm sitting on a BQ-2:45 and hope this analysis is sound. But I'm not confident enough to book a plane ticket yet ;)

Looking at the numbers a little more, BAA accepted to last year's race ~22,640 runners based on their meeting the qualification standards and turned away ~7,400 who didn't (the remaining ~7,360 runners were presumably elite, legacy, disabled and charity runners and such -- side note: I wouldn't have thought this number was so high!). We can assume roughly the same number of qualifying runners will be accepted to 2020's race based on the field size remaining at 30k.

Of these 22,640 qualifying runners, 5,260 ran 20+ minutes under their standard, 8,620 ran 10+ under, and 8,545 ran 5+ under.

We can't extrapolate much from these numbers to 2020 without obviously knowing the distribution of times but can assume a number of 20min+ runners will now have to apply instead to the 10min+ application window, and likewise some 10min+ runners will be relegated to the 5+min window. Which I suppose has the potential to fill the field before the 5min+ window even opens, though the numbers show that won't come close to occuring.

But the 5+min window will certainly receive more applicants due to some number of 10+ runners spilling into it combined with a higher number of runners submitting faster times. I think the latter is due mostly to the popularity of these downhill marathons (and not the VF4% or other factors listed above), as they're marketed heavily to those seeking a BQ and thus presumably the people running them are those who are capable of times only near or above the cutoff on 'fairer' courses.

Nice take. It's pretty clear there will be a cut (Unless Boston wants to grant a 1 year grace period for the changes), and it will most likely follow in-line with the past 5 years (1-2 minute drop). No reason to think otherwise at this point. To your point, we need to know the distribution of these times, not just a blanket "BQ Rate" assessment. For all we know, 25% of the BQs are coming based on seconds below the new rates.

I still don't understand the blanket 5 minute BQ adjustment. At least use some science and precision.

5kPace wrote:

Sesamoiditis wrote:

What I'm saying is that a majority of those 400 runners wouldn't run Boston anyway. Maybe 10% of them would run and some of those 40 runners who would be in the elite field will be replaced by international runners. John Hancock can probably get four Kenyans for the price of Galen Rupp.

True about not having an intent on running Boston. And if thats the case, that the BQ rates are being impacted by a large base of runners trying to get their Trial time (with no intent of falling back and running Boston if they don't get them). That was the second piece of my argument.

If you look at the results of those in the top 100 but not quite at the Trials standard from 2016 (OT year) and 2017 you will see many of them finished 10-20 spots back in 2017 than they did in 2018.

Carpenter: 23rd in 2016, 39th in 2017

Mckay: 40th in 2016, 47th in 2017

Reaves: 38th in 2016, 49th in 2017

Bromka: 31st in 2016, 52nd in 2017

5kPace wrote:

Nice take. It's pretty clear there will be a cut (Unless Boston wants to grant a 1 year grace period for the changes), and it will most likely follow in-line with the past 5 years (1-2 minute drop). No reason to think otherwise at this point. To your point, we need to know the distribution of these times, not just a blanket "BQ Rate" assessment. For all we know, 25% of the BQs are coming based on seconds below the new rates.

I still don't understand the blanket 5 minute BQ adjustment. At least use some science and precision.

Agreed.

One possible more precise approach in particular would do away with applying a single cutoff irrespective of gender and age and instead apply category-specific cutoffs. This would be fairer to runners who just meet the standards in competitive categories yet are turned away under the current approach, which so far as I can gather doesn't discriminate against participation rates and competitiveness.

One possible criteria for calculating the cutoffs would seek to uniformly distribute, to the extent possible, the number of unaccepted runners across categories. The math is trivial and I don't think people could raise a stink about it if the method is transparently explained (not that they even disclose details of their current method). Of course a consequence of this approach, which some would view as a negative, would be a higher number of runners being turned away in the less competitive and/or participated-in categories. My guess is their current approach tries to uniformly distribute the number of runners across category, perhaps relative to the number of qualified applicants in each category.

I'd love to see, though they'd never release it, the breakdown across category of qualified applicants who were turned away. I'd imagine the highest number, both absolute and relative, of unaccepted qualifiers fell in the M18-34 through, say, M40-44 categories, given these categories' relatively challenging standards together with their generally high participation rates.

Sprinter Strider Jogger Spy wrote:

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

The guesses I see so far are:

3.:20

2:30

1:01

1:00

It's highly likely all four are underestimating.

.... The cutoff times certainly are trending lower -- looking back from 2015, the cutoffs have been 1:02, 2:28, 2:09, 3:23 and 4:52, giving year-to-year deltas of 1:26, -19s, 1:14 and 1:29 for an average of 57s. ... the qualification standards and turned away ~7,400 who didn't (the remaining ...

So, if the entry standard has been increasing an average of 57.5 seconds per year, the entry standard would be BQ-5:49.5, except that the BQ decreased by 5 minutes, so the new entry standard would be BQ-0:49.5.

Downhill courses have been popular over the last 5 years, so I wouldn't adjust for that.

But if you look at the last 2 years where vapor flys and similar knock offs were available, the times increased by 1:14, and then 1:29, so that it is getting 15 seconds faster per year. Thus, if it got another 15 seconds faster this year, it would increase by 1:44, where the entry standard would be BQ-6:36, except that the BQ decreased by 5 minutes, so the new entry standard would be BQ-1:36.

It's hard to say what the weather will be, but its interesting that there may be 400 less applicants, as another poster mentioned, because they'll be running the Atlanta OQ on Feb 29th. Considering, 7,384 runners were denied last year, who ran between BQ and BQ-4:52, this is about 25 runners per second (7384/4:52). Thus, without the OQs, the race will allow the next 400 runners to qualify, which will subtract another 16 seconds (400/25).

Thus, the entry standard would have bene BQ-1:36, but without the OQs, it'll be 16 seconds slower, which is 1:20 ( BQ-1:36 - 16 seconds).

Thus, my prediction is BQ-1:20

When comparing year to year to evaluate the cutoff, an important variable isn't being included. You can't compare the cutoff year to year to make a prediction when the BQ standard changes. For the past few years people knew to try and run > 5 minutes under to be safe. With the BQ time 5 minutes faster, people will still try to run 5 minutes under the standard. For an easy example, using just the marathon major fields in the US:

Total Boston, Chicago and NY BQs for 2019 Boston = 17296

Boston makes the standard 5 minutes harder across the board for 2020:

Boston, Chicago and NY BQs for 2020 Boston = 17146

The difference is minimal.

I think with the new standards, I'll be looking at anywhere from -0:30 to about -1:15 to get in... Just a wild guess;)

But lost in those two numbers is how close to the standards these qualifiers' finishing times are. You're implying that these 2020 qualifiers all sped up by 5 minutes wholesale, just because the standards are that much tighter and that they could. Certainly some runners are capable of that but I think that accounts for only a minority of qualifiers (I suppose how big a minority is the crucial number we need). Logic would then argue that the finishing times of these potential 17,146 2020 runners are centered much closer to the 2020 standards than are the times of 2019's 17,300 runners with respect to that year's standards. Thus I think the 2019-to-2020 delta will be only slightly larger than the immediate two prior deltas, which led me to my guess of a 1:37 cutoff.

Sprinter Strider Jogger Spy wrote:

But lost in those two numbers is how close to the standards these qualifier's finishing times are.

To that I will agree. There could be a much larger grouping less than 5 minutes under BQ, but that doesn't change the matter that based on the number of 2020 BQs, over 6000 will still likely be cut this year compared to the 7300 last year. And if all those are grouped under 2 minutes it would go against the history of the last 4 years where there have been between 23 and 30 runner entries left out per second of cutoff.

Also needs to be said that all these numbers are based on Boston taking about 23,200 qualifiers and 10 year streakers combined. Anything more than that obviously reduces the cutoff.

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

Sprinter Strider Jogger Spy wrote:

But lost in those two numbers is how close to the standards these qualifier's finishing times are.

To that I will agree. There could be a much larger grouping less than 5 minutes under BQ, but that doesn't change the matter that based on the number of 2020 BQs, over 6000 will still likely be cut this year compared to the 7300 last year. And if all those are grouped under 2 minutes it would go against the history of the last 4 years where there have been between 23 and 30 runner entries left out per second of cutoff.

Also needs to be said that all these numbers are based on Boston taking about 23,200 qualifiers and 10 year streakers combined. Anything more than that obviously reduces the cutoff.

Curious, how are you deriving your estimate that over 6,000 will still be cut this year. Not saying it's wrong, just wondering.

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

When comparing year to year to evaluate the cutoff, an important variable isn't being included. You can't compare the cutoff year to year to make a prediction when the BQ standard changes. For the past few years people knew to try and run > 5 minutes under to be safe. With the BQ time 5 minutes faster, people will still try to run 5 minutes under the standard. For an easy example, using just the marathon major fields in the US:

Total Boston, Chicago and NY BQs for 2019 Boston = 17296

Boston makes the standard 5 minutes harder across the board for 2020:

Boston, Chicago and NY BQs for 2020 Boston = 17146

The difference is minimal.

Actual numbers for all races in 2020BQ window.

# Qualifiers % BQ eligible finishers

Boston 2020 44,036 9.9%

Boston 2019 47,640 10.4%

Source:

As always, the demand is key. Here are the last fews years of applicants.

'19 - 30,400

'18 - 28,300

'17 - 26,200

'16 - 28,600

'15 - 25,500

Alex1610 wrote:

As always, the demand is key. Here are the last few years of applicants.

'19 - 30,400

'18 - 28,300

'17 - 26,200

'16 - 28,600

'15 - 25,500

And just like the rest of the World Marathon Majors, demand far exceeds supply and the demand continues to grow at all six of them.

5kPace wrote:

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Curious, how are you deriving your estimate that over 6,000 will still be cut this year. Not saying it's wrong, just wondering.

I've tracked about 30 top races for getting BQs over the last five years and, for this window, BQs have only dropped about 3% under the new standard. They'd have to drop about 24% to get the cutoff back near zero. The people that want to run Boston have gravitated to the faster races.

Following the FindMyMarathon link above, they find a 7.5% decrease thus far thru 659 marathons but they are yet to add in 2 Tunnels, 2Revels, 2BQ2's, and a Jack and Jill that are left to go (and Erie and Lehigh Valley and Santa Rosa).

Looking through the FindMyMarathon numbers offered up by Alex1610, and using their figures of US Marathons, the cutoff would be about 3:20. There are a few factors that could swing that each direction.

Make it tougher:

1. The demand for the WMM 6-star medal will continue to make the race draw more entries, especially international runners that otherwise wouldn't be here.

Make it easier:

1. Last year there were 2 Berlin Marathons that fell into the Boston window. This year there is just one which lowers the total BQ numbers from a fast course.

3. Mentioned here by 5KPace, the US Olympic Trials could gift back some time.