Only -48 BQ wrote:
BQ Cutoff Watch wrote:
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.
Funny. Good luck!
Of course I could have elaborated on how hard Joe studied in high school to get his qualifying GPA and SAT. And now, people just tick him off when they tell him to study harder.
I went through my city's ~30 entrants and about half got their qualifiers at races with over 1,000 feet of elevation loss. However, my city is at altitude in Colorado where pretty much all the marathons are downhill and the flat ones leave you at a disadvantage because of the altitude. So while I think some of these downhill races are unfair, it is also unfair to ask people to travel long distances to multiple marathon in a year.
Sprinter Strider Jogger Spy wrote:
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 ;)
From p2 of this thread.
Two seconds off. Do I win a prize?
Though I chose not to apply because we have a little one due just three weeks before the race I can comfort myself with the satisfaction of knowing I would've been accepted had I.
Coloradoran wrote:
I went through my city's ~30 entrants and about half got their qualifiers at races with over 1,000 feet of elevation loss. However, my city is at altitude in Colorado
How do you see where people hit their BQ time? Did you just enter their names one by one into marathonguide.com or us their a way to check on the BAA website.
Colorado Springs here, by the way
This guy seems to have the best methodology for predicting the BQ cut-off times. Missed it by 5 seconds:
https://blog.strava.com/predicting-the-2020-boston-marathon-cutoff-18776/
KawauchiFTW wrote:
This guy seems to have the best methodology for predicting the BQ cut-off times. Missed it by 5 seconds:
https://blog.strava.com/predicting-the-2020-boston-marathon-cutoff-18776/
His conclusion was based on faulty assumptions since his model used 23K as the number of acceptances.
If he had used 24K, his model would have been far off.
Stats nerd wrote:
KawauchiFTW wrote:
This guy seems to have the best methodology for predicting the BQ cut-off times. Missed it by 5 seconds:
https://blog.strava.com/predicting-the-2020-boston-marathon-cutoff-18776/His conclusion was based on faulty assumptions since his model used 23K as the number of acceptances.
If he had used 24K, his model would have been far off.
Precisely. I'm not giving a lot of credit to the people who predicted a time close to 1:39 because we were all predicting off of a 30,000 field size (~23,200 week 2 entries). People who modeled or predicted in the 2:00-2:13 range were truly the accurate predictors.
But hey, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good, I guess.
Ghost 24 wrote:
Stats nerd wrote:
His conclusion was based on faulty assumptions since his model used 23K as the number of acceptances.
If he had used 24K, his model would have been far off.
Precisely. I'm not giving a lot of credit to the people who predicted a time close to 1:39 because we were all predicting off of a 30,000 field size (~23,200 week 2 entries). People who modeled or predicted in the 2:00-2:13 range were truly the accurate predictors.
But hey, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good, I guess.
Looks like find my marathon had about a dozen people get the time right.
https://findmymarathon.com/boston-cut-off-prediction-contest.phpmattw4jc wrote:
Dr. Awesome, MD wrote:
"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.
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.
Notice how its the millennials (18-34 age group) who are complaining about qualifying being too hard for them or complaining about the process.
Listen, buttercups. In the real world not everyone is a winner just for showing up. You have to earn it.
Seems to me like the older age groups get a prize for just showing up
Cruel, cruel world 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.
Notice how its the millennials (18-34 age group) who are complaining about qualifying being too hard for them or complaining about the process.
Listen, buttercups. In the real world not everyone is a winner just for showing up. You have to earn it.
Or we're just realistic and realize that this has been the hardest year to qualify since 1987.
Or we're just realistic and realize that a 5 minute flat decrease in standards is disproportionately harder to meet when you have less total time to work with.
Or we're just realistic and realize that even a flat additional time cutoff is also disproportionately punitive towards people with faster qualifying standards.
Or we are just realistic wrote:
Cruel, cruel world wrote:
Notice how its the millennials (18-34 age group) who are complaining about qualifying being too hard for them or complaining about the process.
Listen, buttercups. In the real world not everyone is a winner just for showing up. You have to earn it.
Or we're just realistic and realize that this has been the hardest year to qualify since 1987.
Or we're just realistic and realize that a 5 minute flat decrease in standards is disproportionately harder to meet when you have less total time to work with.
Or we're just realistic and realize that even a flat additional time cutoff is also disproportionately punitive towards people with faster qualifying standards.
Or you're just a whining bunch of babies who think that everything should be given to you just for participating.
Wait until you get older and your body starts to rebel. When you wake up you have aches and pains. You don't sleep well. You put on weight easier. You get injured easier and recover slower. It must be nice to be young and ignorant. Keep up the running for the next 30 years and then we'll see how arrogant you are then.
Yeah, I'm sure all that's true, and most people aren't as interested in older athletes because they're worse. Almost all sports and standards in athletics are based on male/female, and not on age groups. People retire from competition when they get older. If I'm old and running 4-5 hour marathons I would never by default expect someone to let me into a prestigious race or something, and get mad at young people who have to run way more impressive times. But yeah, if the Boston Marathon wants to be nice and lower standards for older people, that's fine. But young people can complain about being kicked out with their more impressive times, just like you can complain about your aches and weight gain.
I suppose you have never heard of age graded times? If not, get ready for a surprise for how slow you get in 20 years.
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