Boston 2021 Cutoff Could Soar

Ok boomer...

Congrats for you. Your wife is nuts. Why subject yourself unless you're super-obsessed with the hobbyjogger olympics?

I agree that it takes some level of talent or effort. Everyone I've ever seen who cares to actually qualifies for Boston.

I went once, they tried to blow me up so I took that as a cue and won't go back. There's not much else special about the city in any way. Maybe go to Fenway once.

Raysharp001 wrote:

Oh, and my daughter also got her BQ. She's not much of a dedicated runner, prefers XC skiing, basically trained by biking to work and back and running once or twice a week.

I do wonder about this. And honestly I won't even really want to complain about it because I think everyone in the male 18-34 year old age group for Boston has to just accept it is what it is and just run 2:54 this year and probably 2:50 at some point. Whatever...the shoes are good, training is advanced and so on. It can be done by me, and many others (though nowhere near to all who want as much as Letsrun hardos would want you to believe). Now to "whine," but honestly again I will go way under the standard soon enough.

I have no trouble believing there are some 18-34 year-old women who can break 3:30 running this sparingly and definitely a ton more at like 25-30mpw and generally being fit. Does that number dwarf that of men who can run 3 hours with that same training load? I'd think so, and I know it's supposedly about representation and not fairness/performance equivalent.

BUT the problem is this is literally the one age group (19-39) where women outnumber men. By almost 800 entrants last year...Otherwise men grossly outnumber women in the race with it getting worse the older the entrants get. For participation purposes, the 30 minute separation is actually too generous for men and they probably should lower the 40+ men standards by 2:30 to make it harder and raise the women's by 2:30 to make it easier.

So, for me the system isn't logical or fair. The world records are 12:30 apart, and realistically elite women are about 15 minutes slower than men. Yet the standards are 30 minutes apart when all logic in fairness and performance equivalency would have them 15-25 minutes apart. For the marathons just trying to divvy up elite spots you can see the real numbers. In New York, they're 20 minutes apart. In Berlin they are 15 minutes apart for 18-44 and 25 minutes apart for 45 and up.

For full transparency, some the other majors like Boston that are trying to keep the M/F ratio even have some more even lopsided distributions.

Anyhow the system is what it is. Complaining about it isn't going to change it, and yes it would be nice to be able to run once a week and qualify.

[quote]boomhauer wrote:

Ok boomer...

Congrats for you. Your wife is nuts. Why subject yourself unless you're super-obsessed with the hobbyjogger olympics?

Just the opposite, actually. Racing doesn't interest her at all. She did it as a mother-daughter thing. I try to discourage her from running when it hurts. But as a 58 year old who was still in the elite wave in the Birkebeiner ski marathon into her early 50s, it wasn't too hard for her to run 3:54. We boomers get easy BQ standards.

Standards are tougher now than they were less than 10 years ago. But if you want to compare it to the early 80's, when men had to run a 2:50 and women a 3:20, then yeah. Were you even alive in the early 80's?

WhyRegisterHere? wrote:

PHUK Boston. Phuk bucket-listers. Phuk millennials. This race was the greatest before being puffed up into absurdity.

You mean like back in the 80s when the qualifying time was 2:50?

I mean to be fair to this guy from 1990-2011, the standards were much easier, everyone got in, and the race had the number of runners they wanted. It is only now they are being forced to tighten the screws and it's getting more and more uncertain what gets in the race ("puffed up into absurdity").

Does anyone have an educated guess for how much faster you'll have to run than your qualifying time for 2021? I'm just curious because I was hoping to go 2:56-2:57 for my marathon in a few weeks and I'm in the 18-34 male age group, but I guess that may not cut it...

yes.

I've been alive forever.

and wrote the very 1st song.

I did wear vaporflys when I qualified. I also don’t think I truly “raced” the marathon distance correctly. It was my first marathon. I took people’s advice and paced conservatively. My fastest split was the last split. People around me looked like zombies and I was zipping by, legs hurting, but otherwise feeling fine. I had like a 1 minute stop to fill my water bottle at an aid station, I ran over to hug family on the sidelines. I didn’t use my watch much during the race and had no idea I would be 2 min under the BQ standard until mile 23–hence the speed up

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

I mean to be fair to this guy from 1990-2011, the standards were much easier, everyone got in, and the race had the number of runners they wanted. It is only now they are being forced to tighten the screws and it's getting more and more uncertain what gets in the race ("puffed up into absurdity").

It's all the fault of the Muslims.

Without the Islamic attack in Boston, there would me no more interest in this race than for example Grandma's Marathon.

Islam made BAA great again.

Yeah. You're probably correct that cut off will be much higher. I think they should increase the field size, but it seems like the towns the race runs through has the BAA over a barrel (or so it's claim). If not upping the field size, the BAA really should prioritize people who hit the qualifying standard and have never run it before. Everyone who does that should have that chance to run Boston at least once given its place in our sport. If there's a cut, it should be for those who already have done the race.

Grrrrrrr wrote:

Yeah. You're probably correct that cut off will be much higher. I think they should increase the field size, but it seems like the towns the race runs through has the BAA over a barrel (or so it's claim). If not upping the field size, the BAA really should prioritize people who hit the qualifying standard and have never run it before. Everyone who does that should have that chance to run Boston at least once given its place in our sport. If there's a cut, it should be for those who already have done the race.

I disagree. Part of the appeal of Boston is the deep field at every age group. Top 10 AG is significant. Do not dilute the field by excluding faster runners.

dfs2457 wrote:

Does anyone have an educated guess for how much faster you'll have to run than your qualifying time for 2021? I'm just curious because I was hoping to go 2:56-2:57 for my marathon in a few weeks and I'm in the 18-34 male age group, but I guess that may not cut it...

Purely a guess, but times seem to be decreasing by ~1:30 every year. End of the cut off this year was ~2:58:30, so that would put it at ~2:57:00. It always has the potential to be even faster though, which is why I'd think 2:54 or faster would be secure for your age group.

Best of luck! 2:56-2:57 still puts you on the playing field for a spot.

Silly races like revel big bear, with participants wearing vaporfly... Got people times 20 min faster than what they naturally can do.

2:48 BMW driving guy from NY did 2:28..

Raysharp001 wrote:

I ran 2:58:28 last month, and will turn 60 next month. So I made my BQ by 51:32 under. Not a humblebrag, just a plain old brag. I worked hard for it.

Oh, and my wife also got a BQ. She literally has no cartilage in her big toe joint and has excruciating pain running and walking so she rarely ever runs.

Oh, and my daughter also got her BQ. She's not much of a dedicated runner, prefers XC skiing, basically trained by biking to work and back and running once or twice a week.

Not everyone will make a BQ. It takes some combination of talent and effort. Most people will be lacking in one or the other. So it goes.

Congrats! You got in by being old, not fast.

grannie wrote:

Congrats! You got in by being old, not fast.

I'd say that 2:58 is plenty fast. We don't even have to add "for a 60 year old".

It's definitely easy for the 45 year old women!

That's the group that blew the hole thing out of the water in 2008 IIRC. No only can anyone with any training hit a 3:30 or so, this group has 3:50 (was 3:55). Like even non-runners can run that.

Correction - it was a full 4:00 for women and 3:30 for men at 45+!

BQWatch wrote:

Just looking at the NYC and Chicago Marathons, the number of BQs increased 28.9% over the previous year with nearly 2400 additional BQs between the two races compared to 2018. With 2021 being the 125th Anniversary, if the field size doesn't jump, prepare for cutoff inflation again.

Everyone was crapping themselves leading up to Boston registration this past year, saying that the cut-off was going to be in the 3-4 minute range based on statistics like you've given.

It ended up being 1:39.

Everyone loves getting their panties in a bunch by blaming the VF.

Reality, as it turns out, is far less interesting than the tin-foil hat theories that the Trumpians around here can create.