2020 Boston Marathon Cut Off Predictions

You seem pretty well connected to the BAA (Specifically with your $1m over costs each year comment).

Can you speak to your "The field size will increase" comment? Lots of buzz around that. Seems like that would just need to be a short term solution, correct? In the future, maybe it decreases back to 25-30k. You go on to say demand will decrease in the future. Figure BAA wants to capitalize on the current "run craze"... At least within their means. No sense in waiting any longer to increase field size, with the assumption they are able to do it now.

The three fastest courses from this weekend - Big Cottonwood, BQ2 Chicago, and Tunnel Light had 74 fewer qualifiers combined compared to last year. It wasn't a good last two weekends overall for those seeking a last minute BQ.

Applications for us squeakers starts at 10 am Eastern today.

Over the weekend, it rained and I was bored and crunched some numbers:

Last year US qualifiers vs this year: 49,812 vs 45,769

Last year Boston spots awarded to qualifiers vs total applications: 23,074 vs 30,458

Last year Boston applicants who would not meet this year's BQ marks: 7,604

Last year Boston applicants who did 5-10 mins better than last year's BQ: 8,545

Last year, Boston applicant squeakers were distributed roughly 28 applicants per second over those accepted under the 10 minute mark

Note applicants are international and US qualifiers are not so the populations are not easily comparable

So...

The number of US qualifiers this year is down 4,043 from last year but if runners' efforts/results had been the same as last year, we should have expected that number to be down 7,604. In other words, 3,561 more runners qualified this year than expected if all things remained constant. Last year, only 61% of BQ qualifiers applied but a good chunk of those who applied last year (53%) would be this year's squeakers but these may still be distributed at roughly 28 runners per second as they were last year. If the same ratios hold this year and 61% of those 3,561 runners apply...

Therefore...

I expect roughly 9,200 spots to be open today for roughly 10,717 squeakers who will apply. That suggests a cut-off of around 54 seconds faster than the standard.

I think you have a slight flaw in your math. Let's take it more simply using the same numbers as you have used:

61.149% of last year's 49,812 qualifiers entered for the 2019 race. (again, out of necessity, ignoring international races)

Using the same percentage, that would have 61.149% of this year's 45,769 qualifiers enter for a total of 27,986 entries for 2020.

Using the same acceptance numbers as last year of 23,074, this would leave 4912 on the outside looking in for a cutoff (using your 28 squeaker runners per second) of 2:55.

Both of your math attempts are flawed. You're spinning your wheels trying to digest these numbers but the fact remains that we have no clue what the distribution is. Some of these attempts would have been good last year. It won't be equal to the past few years, though. It's just a matter of math. There is no data to support that runners got 3-5 minutes faster in 1 year to keep the distribution equal. Just that BQ rates didn't drop as much as everyone thought. Which shouldn't surprise too many people because the assumption for the last 1-2 years was you needed BQ-5 anyway. It was just a change on paper. There is always a clustering of runners right around the BQ Standard. This year that number will be even heavier. I'm willing to bet on that.

75% of last years Boston field was also International runners. Have fun trying to digest that number into your predictions.

Agree with most everything you wrote until your last paragraph. You flipped the numbers. 77% of registered runners last year were residents of the US.

Sorry, in 2018 77% were US residents.

2019 was 75% US.

i am really curious as to why the BAA hasn't announced the field size like they nearly always do..

wonder if they are going to have an entered field of ~33,000 so there will be ~30,000 in Hopkinton on race day?

most years around 10% DNS

25timer wrote:

i am really curious as to why the BAA hasn't announced the field size like they nearly always do..

wonder if they are going to have an entered field of ~33,000 so there will be ~30,000 in Hopkinton on race day?

most years around 10% DNS

If there were years to expand the field, it will be for 2020 and 2021 (125th) without a doubt. In the coming years, demand for this event (not just Boston, but the Marathon in total) will slow down. With every passing year, the older folks are dropping out and not as many younger folks are deciding the marathon is worth it based on lifestyle choices.

My prediction remains that BAA has been given an allowance for increasing the field in cooperation with each town along the way. They won't be making an announcement on that field size until they receive all applications through Wednesday. It won't be a hard cut on the 23k number like it has been in the past. But that's not to say they won't keep it at 23k if the quality of times submitted is weak. My point being, i think they're going to have a hard time cutting 5k runners if a bulk of those times are 1-3 minutes below the BQ time.

BQ-7:40. I received my Confirmation of Acceptance this morning. Since they have opened the any qualified time window, they must have slots left after the BQ-5 window.

Harbinger wrote:

BQ-7:40. I received my Confirmation of Acceptance this morning. Since they have opened the any qualified time window, they must have slots left after the BQ-5 window.

take you long to come up with that one?

there was pretty much zero possibility it was going to fill last week. it's never filled in the first week. last year is the closest it's ever come.

with the new standards, it would have taken both a huge increase in demand and a corresponding increase in performance by folks qualifying for it to fill last week.

Free_the_thigh wrote:

deuces wrote:

If you think that you are "more worthy" of a spot in a race because you ran a time somewhere that is objectively more difficult, then you are a loser.

Are you stupid?

That is how qualifying times work. The person with the faster time is allowed to race, the other isn’t. They literally are more worthy?

Boston isn’t a lottery, faster you are the more worthy you are to run.

I understand how they want to structure their race entries in order to build a prestige around the race and how they want to shape their reputation.

To individually think you are more worthy of someone to run in a race because you ran faster than them is pathetic.

But...that's how much of athletics works. People in the Olympics are MUCH more worthy of me to run those races than I am. I don't think they're inherently a 'better' person in general, but they've proven themselves to be better than me in whatever event they're competing.

trackster11230 wrote:

But...that's how much of athletics works. People in the Olympics are MUCH more worthy of me to run those races than I am. I don't think they're inherently a 'better' person in general, but they've proven themselves to be better than me in whatever event they're competing.

You're right, but the Olympics takes no more than the three best from a country for an event. At Boston last year, if you were an 18-34 year old male that entered and didn't get accepted you weren't one of the fastest 5,711 in your AG.

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

trackster11230 wrote:

But...that's how much of athletics works. People in the Olympics are MUCH more worthy of me to run those races than I am. I don't think they're inherently a 'better' person in general, but they've proven themselves to be better than me in whatever event they're competing.

You're right, but the Olympics takes no more than the three best from a country for an event. At Boston last year, if you were an 18-34 year old male that entered and didn't get accepted you weren't one of the fastest 5,711 in your AG.

This conversation is ridiculous. I just went back and found the original post and the poster who was complaining made it pretty clear his biggest gripe was the imbalanced qualification standards. He felt as though a 2:58 is more impressive than a 3:27. I'm pretty sure this argument has been made and supported on this board over and over. Sure, they don't deserve a spot over the 3:27 as things stand now, but if the cutoff standards were more balanced based on Age/Gender performance, they would.

5kPace wrote:

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

You're right, but the Olympics takes no more than the three best from a country for an event. At Boston last year, if you were an 18-34 year old male that entered and didn't get accepted you weren't one of the fastest 5,711 in your AG.

This conversation is ridiculous. I just went back and found the original post and the poster who was complaining made it pretty clear his biggest gripe was the imbalanced qualification standards. He felt as though a 2:58 is more impressive than a 3:27. I'm pretty sure this argument has been made and supported on this board over and over. Sure, they don't deserve a spot over the 3:27 as things stand now, but if the cutoff standards were more balanced based on Age/Gender performance, they would.

And my point going back to my first response is that feeling so entitled about your BQ that you post that you are more worthy of a spot than someone else makes you a tool.

deuces wrote:

5kPace wrote:

This conversation is ridiculous. I just went back and found the original post and the poster who was complaining made it pretty clear his biggest gripe was the imbalanced qualification standards. He felt as though a 2:58 is more impressive than a 3:27. I'm pretty sure this argument has been made and supported on this board over and over. Sure, they don't deserve a spot over the 3:27 as things stand now, but if the cutoff standards were more balanced based on Age/Gender performance, they would.

And my point going back to my first response is that feeling so entitled about your BQ that you post that you are more worthy of a spot than someone else makes you a tool.

Maybe. Pretty sure their argument still remains that the standards aren't fair across age and genders, and that they were more interested in now achieving a fairer (but harder) qualifying standard in NYC. Maybe they were a bit petulant with their comment. We should all be used to it on this board. But I think their claim still has validity and there isn't anything wrong with walking away from Boston if it means you'd rather run NYC because you agree more with their qualification process.

deuces wrote:

5kPace wrote:

This conversation is ridiculous. I just went back and found the original post and the poster who was complaining made it pretty clear his biggest gripe was the imbalanced qualification standards. He felt as though a 2:58 is more impressive than a 3:27. I'm pretty sure this argument has been made and supported on this board over and over. Sure, they don't deserve a spot over the 3:27 as things stand now, but if the cutoff standards were more balanced based on Age/Gender performance, they would.

And my point going back to my first response is that feeling so entitled about your BQ that you post that you are more worthy of a spot than someone else makes you a tool.

I agree with you but runners roughly fall into two camps - great people and tools. Think about what we do - you can see it as well balanced, healthy individuals, or selfish pricks who spend hours alone and demand cities stop everything for us time to time. Along with asking for families and work to give us a break runners can be pretty selfish. But thankfully most in the community are pretty good. I love having conversations about the sport that I enjoy with everyone - not so I can brag but so I can talk to someone and maybe not have a dumb - why do I run so much or why I don't I eat enough conversation.

But the guy you were referencing as definitely a tool.

So anywayyyysss..

When do they typically release the final cut-off time (aka confirm the 0>BQ>-5 registration) and field size?