2020 Boston Marathon Cut Off Predictions

Hmm you're right. Could at least get some rough estimates. I was thinking it could be hard to estimate how many people who qualified in one of those races also qualified with another race within the qualifying window, and would have gotten in without the downhill one. Not sure how common that would be.

biased squeaker wrote:

Hmm you're right. Could at least get some rough estimates. I was thinking it could be hard to estimate how many people who qualified in one of those races also qualified with another race within the qualifying window, and would have gotten in without the downhill one. Not sure how common that would be.

That's my case. I qualified via a flat marathon and a downhill marathon. Submitted my entry from the flat one and got accepted. Downhill one was very slightly slower for me (less training) - but both of the times would get me into Boston 2020.

LetThemIn wrote:

I sure would like to see Boston get rid of the "cut-off" time and just let everyone in, especially if its just about 1000 runners being excluded. ...

Well, the b!tch!n worked (partially):

"In cooperation with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the eight cities and towns along the Boston Marathon route, the B.A.A. has also announced an increased field size of 1,500 official entrants for the 2020 Boston Marathon."

To those that made the cutoff by 1 minute or less: "Your Welcome"

For that didn't make it" "Chicago"

Math E. Matics wrote:

calculatingcalculator wrote:

you want to show me how 27,288 is more than 30,458? is that Trump math?

applications this year were 89.592% of last year's... i think 10% 'down' is close enough

You're reading it wrong, chief.

how, kemo sabe?

what color is the sky on the planet where 27,000 is more than 30,000?

FYI, I grasp the concept just fine Dr. Awesome... What makes that comment so boring? The fact that your disagree with it? If you call it a qualifying time, and people who make it don't actually qualify, then that is not a qualifying time...

The point you missed is simply in a year where an event drops qualification standards to make it more difficult to get in, the people who hit that standard should be safe. Otherwise, why drop the standards in the first place? Maybe they should have been dropped further.

No matter though, I'm already well into training for a 2021 qualifier and I'll leave no doubt or blow up trying this time.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Ha, I run my race attempting to make 2021 in a few weeks. Hopefully I run a time that feels "safe," but with the current system who knows.

Yup, same here

There goes my unrealistic hope that Boston wouldn’t fill up (ie no cut) and I would be able to sneak in to the 2020 race with a qualifying time this fall.

I remember when Boston used to GIVE you an extra 59 seconds on your BQ. Now they take away time.

Good ole days wrote:

I remember when Boston used to GIVE you an extra 59 seconds on your BQ. Now they take away time.

and they used to give you 'time credit' if you used Boston as your qualifier, depending on which corral you started in - all before chip/electronic timing became ubiquitous

my second Boston, i got to deduct 90 seconds from my finishing time at the prior Boston because i started in the 3rd corral

i paced a few times and always told my group that my target was to be un under the 'extra' 59 seconds...took advantage of those 59 seconds twice myself

NashuaRun wrote:

biased squeaker wrote:

I would love to see the analysis of how the cutoff would be different if courses with >500' or >1000' of drop were not accepted. Sounds hard to do though. My dream is that this analysis would report that I would have gotten in with my -51 seconds if those downhill races weren't accepted, and then I could feel righteously angry or something :D and then proceed to run 7 minutes faster on a downhill course and never complain about downhill courses again

You could probably get that data pretty easily from find my marathon. They list the # of qualifiers from each race. Obviously, you don't know who from each race applied but could probably extrapolate. Wouldn't hurt to email them either. They may be able to run the numbers pretty easily.

Your wish is granted.

I emailed findmymarathon and they just now sent me the data. Here goes. These are for races eligible for the 2020 Boston. They said it was just races in the US. They said it doesn't necessarily mean 500 or 1000 feet from the start to finish. The 500/1000 feet is the difference between high and low on the course. But I would think that if a course does not have a large net down hill from the start to finish but has 500 from high to low points it probably won't have many qualifiers for Boston since it would be really hard. They may try to get me just start to finish races but this is what they could get quickly.

For marathons with more than 500 foot drop.

86 marathons

5374 qualifiers

1000+ drop

45 marathons

4513 qualifiers

That extra 500 feet makes a big difference.

Ghost 24 wrote:

Except for mine. My prediction of 2:03 took all of those things into account, including the knowledge that all the models have consistently come in on the low side year after year. I made that adjustment in my methodology. Came up with 2:03.

I also made that same assumption last year, and was about the only person I knew who predicted a cutoff of more than 4 minutes. People thought I was off my meds when I said the cutoff for 2019 would be more than 4 minutes. Full disclosure, I was still on the low end, I predicted 4:12 and it was 4:52 as we all know. But I don't recall anybody else legitimately saying it would start with a 4 last year.

There may have been someone closer that I don’t recall but without the addition of 1050 or so qualifiers this year the cutoff would have been about 2:13. Congratulations Ghost24.

How do you know? You don't know the distribution of those 1,050.

Thanks BQ Cutoff Watch. I was trying to work out those numbers too. Depending on how many of the extra 1,500 spots actually went to qualifying runners, I think the cutoff would have been between 2:05 and 2:18. So your 2:13 us squarely in the middle of that range.

"Should" has nothing to do with anything when you consider two important things: they can't predict the future (how many BQs will be achieved and how many will apply) and the race has a ceiling for entrants. How do you square "should all get in" with "there are too many BQ applicants for the available spots"?

Regarding whether the standards should have been dropped further...there's no indication that the BAA is opposed to or bothered by using a cutoff. This was my point that, to me, the "BQ should equal automatic in" is boring, because some people keep keep saying this year after year. The BAA clearly doesn't agree. And what kind of SNAFU would result if they got aggressive with the satandards and had only, say, 17K people who met the standard register? The calls for lack of fairness would be louder and the clusterfk that would follow would annoy runners and the BAA organizers even more.

My hero! That was fast! I love findmymarathon. Interesting. That's more qualifiers than I would have guessed. Do the >500 drop numbers include the 1000+ drop races, or are those 2 categories separate? Yeah, I tried to find uphill/hilly races with 500' + elevation differences on findmymarathon, and seems like most of those races are the ones with ~50 people and ~2% BQ rates.

I think the best comparison is college entry. Joe graduates high school and gets an 1100 on his SAT. He qualifies or meets the minimum requirements to apply for entry to the University of Boston Marathon. UBM only has 1000 spots for incoming freshman. Because of it's prestige, they receive 1,500 applications. UBM Admissions takes those with the highest GPAs and SAT scores. Joe and 499 other qualifiers get the rejection letter.

Sorry Joe.

mattw4jc wrote:

I think the best comparison is college entry. Joe graduates high school and gets an 1100 on his SAT. He qualifies or meets the minimum requirements to apply for entry to the University of Boston Marathon. UBM only has 1000 spots for incoming freshman. Because of it's prestige, they receive 1,500 applications. UBM Admissions takes those with the highest GPAs and SAT scores. Joe and 499 other qualifiers get the rejection letter.

Sorry Joe.

I may save this for next year and the year after ad infinitum. You captured it perfectly.

BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:

mattw4jc wrote:

I think the best comparison is college entry. Joe graduates high school and gets an 1100 on his SAT. He qualifies or meets the minimum requirements to apply for entry to the University of Boston Marathon. UBM only has 1000 spots for incoming freshman. Because of it's prestige, they receive 1,500 applications. UBM Admissions takes those with the highest GPAs and SAT scores. Joe and 499 other qualifiers get the rejection letter.

Sorry Joe.

I may save this for next year and the year after ad infinitum. You captured it perfectly.

Off to community college of Chicago to study hard to qualify for admission next year.

I'm mostly just annoyed by all these cheap downhill races. Pretty naive to the process, but I didn't know that was a thing.

Yes, this sums it up.

More people need to go to UBM....or to any U, really. Reading is fubdamental. For instance, the BAA lists prominently on their website, in red font, the following:

"Due to field size limitations, achieving one's qualifying standard does not guarantee entry into the event, but simply the opportunity to submit for registration."

Typical BQ poster: "But [crying like a child] BQ should mean BQ!?"

Reality: "But it doesn't."