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Boston Qualifying Times Unfair? |
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Qualifying for the Boston Marathon is the goal of many runners. As you are probably aware there are different qualifying times for men and women in various age groups. Table 1 shows the qualifying times for each male age group. Also shown is the corresponding Age Performance Percentage (AP%) calculated for each qualifying time using a World Masters Athletic Age-Grading Calculator.
If the qualifying times for each age group are fair, that is, equally difficult to achieve, we would expect the Age Performance Percentage to be approximately equal for all of the age groups. Notice that this is the case for all but the very oldest of the male age groups. The AP% only goes above 68% for runners age 75 and above.
Table 1. Men's Boston Qualifying Times
| Age |
18-34 |
35-39 |
40-44 |
45-49 |
50-54 |
55-59 |
60-64 |
65-69 |
70-74 |
75-79 |
80+ |
| Time |
3:10 |
3:15 |
3:20 |
3:30 |
3:35 |
3:45 |
4:00 |
4:15 |
4:30 |
4:45 |
5:00 |
| AP% |
65.4% |
64.5% |
65.9% |
65.5% |
67.0% |
67.1% |
66.2% |
65.6% |
66.0% |
68.5% |
74.2% |
Table 2 shows the same data for women. A careful look at the times for each age group will reveal that the Boston Athletic Association simply added 30 minutes to the qualifying time for each men’s age group. But does that simple addition result in qualifying times that are fair across all age groups? The AP% for each women’s age group strongly suggests that is not the case. Women in the younger age groups (18-34 and 35-39) appear to have much easier target than older women and a slightly easier target than the men have. And, most notably, the task of qualifying for Boston gets progressively harder for each successive age group above 45-49. At the extreme, a woman in her 80’s has to run a time close to the USATF marathon record just to qualify for Boston, e.g., the women’s 80-84 record is 5:10:04 and the 85-89 record is 6:53:50.
Table 2. Women's Boston Qualifying Times
| Age |
18-34 |
35-39 |
40-44 |
45-49 |
50-54 |
55-59 |
60-64 |
65-69 |
70-74 |
75-79 |
80+ |
| Time |
3:40 |
3:45 |
3:50 |
4:00 |
4:05 |
4:15 |
4:30 |
4:45 |
5:00 |
5:15 |
5:30 |
| AP% |
61.9% |
62.4% |
64.3% |
65.5% |
68.5% |
70.7% |
72.3% |
75.3% |
80.3% |
88.0% |
100.4% |
Table 3 shows a set of women’s qualifying times that would be approximately as “fair” as the corresponding men’s qualifying times. Notice that younger women would have to suck it up and run slightly faster to qualify. And each women’s group age 50 and above would get significantly more time.
Table 3. Hypothetically "Fair" Women's Qualifying Times
| Age |
18-34 |
35-39 |
40-44 |
45-49 |
50-54 |
55-59 |
60-64 |
65-69 |
70-74 |
75-79 |
80+ |
| Time |
3:30 |
3:40 |
3:50 |
4:00 |
4:15 |
4:35 |
5:00 |
5:25 |
6:00 |
7:00 |
7:30 |
| AP% |
64.8% |
63.8% |
64.3% |
65.5% |
65.8% |
65.5% |
65.1% |
66.1% |
66.9% |
66.1% |
73.7% |
Technical Details. The WMA Age-Grading Calculator used in the analysis can be found here: http://www.howardgrubb.co.uk/athletics/wmalookup06.html. The upper age for each group was used in the calculation, e.g., for the age 40-44 group, the calculation was made using age 44. For the 80+ age group, AP% was calculated for an 84 year old. The qualifying time used in the calculations included the extra 59 seconds that the Boston Marathon allows, e.g., the actual qualifying time for an 18-34 male is 3:10:59 or under.
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