Nice idea but I think the predictions are way off. I ran a 3:17 in spring and targeting a 3:10 marathon in a couple of weeks.
As unlikely as it sounds Strava predicts 3:13 (think they base it on my last marathon), Garmin is similar. Runalyze is about as off as you are.
Maybe you're putting too much emphasis on weekly volume. M35 and I can run this with 50k weekly and 75k peak volume. Relatively confident I'd be able to sub 3 with weekly volume of 80k/100k peak.
rconti 2 hours ago [-]
Context:
There's a limit on how many people can run the Boston Marathon.
To qualify to "run Boston", you have to run another marathon in a qualifying time[1], prior to applying. For example, the qualifying time for a male 40-44 is 3h05m. For a female of the same age, 3h35. Non-binary, 3h35.
You submit your application and qualifying race and time, and then some time _later_, based on the number applications received that are within the cutoff (and it's always more than they can accept), they adjust the cutoff time downwards even further. That additional cutoff delta is the what's being calculated on the slider here. So if your published cutoff is 3h05, and the slider predicts a 6min delta, you need to have run 2h59, not 3h05.
>To qualify to "run Boston", you have to run another marathon in a qualifying time
just to add this to the mix: there are faster and slower marathon courses, so you can improve your qualifying time by running in one of them. "downhill" seems to be a promising factor.
Dunno man, running downhill is murder for knees, I usually had to slow down instead of speeding up on down slopes.
abeppu 2 hours ago [-]
Methodologically, why would you have one cutoff vs a different cutoff per group (as there are different qualifying times per group)?
I am not a marathoner, but I'd imagine that a 6 min decrease from the stated qualifying time cuts out a larger proportion of younger runners (i.e. decreasing the threshold from 2h55 to 2h49 for men 18-34 seems like a much sharper cut than decreasing 4h20 to 4h14 for women 60-64). I would have thought you'd want to pick the delta by looking at the distribution within each gender x age pool.
steadyelk 2 hours ago [-]
It could be intentional. For a lot of folks, running the Boston Marathon is a dream, so maybe the BAA wants to make that dream just slightly more attainable the older you get.
poutrathor 2 hours ago [-]
As always it's probably because maths still is too hard for most people and keeping the rule simple won over fairness.
rconti 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah, doing it by flat time delta rather than percent delta seems fundamentally flawed, but of course it makes it easier for the average person to understand.
I also don't understand what the motives are behind how the age/gender buckets are calculated in the first place. I'm not sure if it's public or not.
Are they:
* Trying to calculate based on an nth percentile finishing time across each bucket?
* Trying to ensure roughly equal percentages of applicants from each bucket get accepted?
* Something else?
k2enemy 35 minutes ago [-]
Making sure they can accept a lot of high disposable income 40+ runners that will buy a lot of merch. The time cutoffs start to get much easier after 40.
Brendinooo 20 minutes ago [-]
Your site looks interesting but your terms of service seem really onerous. That stopped me from finishing the signup process. My running data is deeply personal; it's tied to my health metrics and contains years of location patterns around my home, work, and daily life.
So when I see stuff like "irrevocable, sublicensable" rights to all of my running data...that's a lot to give up for a company and product I know very little about.
Capping your liability at $50 total for any harm and doing as much as you can to try and get me to lose access to legal protections such as class action and a jury trial is all a bit much.
davidgomes 2 hours ago [-]
As someone with a 5:38 delta, I'm very anxiously waiting for BAA to announce the official cutoff.
In the meantime, if you're at all curious about the kinds of levels to which people go with trying to predict the cutoff check out this blog[1]. This is from Brian Rock [2], who every year collects data about a lot of marathons all over the world and then tries to guess the official cutoff for the Boston marathon. Very cool stuff!
I was wondering if they would let a total slug run the marathon for money. It turns out that they expect you to run it in under 6 hours (which is a slow "recreational" pace). You're also expected to raise an average of $15,000, but it may be more depending on the charity. More details here: https://www.charityteams.com/boston-faqs
3 hours ago [-]
moralestapia 1 hours ago [-]
Why does the cutoff get smaller with increasing qualified runners?
I would have expected the opposite.
rconti 1 hours ago [-]
It's not about _qualified_ runners, it's about the size of the total field accepted.
Boston allows "roughly" 25k participants, but that number fluctuates somewhat every year. If they allow 30k, the cutoff delta goes down. If they allowed an unlimited field, the cutoff delta would be 0, and you'd only have to worry about your published qualifying time.
maxerickson 1 hours ago [-]
The slider adjusts the number allowed to run (apparently the pool of time qualified candidates can be assumed to be larger than the max value of the slider).
ck2 2 hours ago [-]
it's nice to see so many people running marathons now
y'all better safety-qualify at least -6 minutes tho, -7 if you can
YEAR FIELD SIZE CUT-OFF NOT ACCEPTED
2024 30,000 5:29 11,039
2025 30,000 6:51 12,324
Finnucane 2 hours ago [-]
No. The answer is no.
steadyelk 2 hours ago [-]
We have a friend who has qualified three times but has never run it due to the cutoff. Maybe the BAA should consider a separate bucket for these runners.
As unlikely as it sounds Strava predicts 3:13 (think they base it on my last marathon), Garmin is similar. Runalyze is about as off as you are.
Maybe you're putting too much emphasis on weekly volume. M35 and I can run this with 50k weekly and 75k peak volume. Relatively confident I'd be able to sub 3 with weekly volume of 80k/100k peak.
There's a limit on how many people can run the Boston Marathon.
To qualify to "run Boston", you have to run another marathon in a qualifying time[1], prior to applying. For example, the qualifying time for a male 40-44 is 3h05m. For a female of the same age, 3h35. Non-binary, 3h35.
You submit your application and qualifying race and time, and then some time _later_, based on the number applications received that are within the cutoff (and it's always more than they can accept), they adjust the cutoff time downwards even further. That additional cutoff delta is the what's being calculated on the slider here. So if your published cutoff is 3h05, and the slider predicts a 6min delta, you need to have run 2h59, not 3h05.
1. https://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/qualify
just to add this to the mix: there are faster and slower marathon courses, so you can improve your qualifying time by running in one of them. "downhill" seems to be a promising factor.
https://findmymarathon.com/fastestmarathoncourses-state.php?...
https://runtothefinish.com/downhill-boston-qualifiers/
I am not a marathoner, but I'd imagine that a 6 min decrease from the stated qualifying time cuts out a larger proportion of younger runners (i.e. decreasing the threshold from 2h55 to 2h49 for men 18-34 seems like a much sharper cut than decreasing 4h20 to 4h14 for women 60-64). I would have thought you'd want to pick the delta by looking at the distribution within each gender x age pool.
I also don't understand what the motives are behind how the age/gender buckets are calculated in the first place. I'm not sure if it's public or not.
Are they:
* Trying to calculate based on an nth percentile finishing time across each bucket?
* Trying to ensure roughly equal percentages of applicants from each bucket get accepted?
* Something else?
So when I see stuff like "irrevocable, sublicensable" rights to all of my running data...that's a lot to give up for a company and product I know very little about.
Capping your liability at $50 total for any harm and doing as much as you can to try and get me to lose access to legal protections such as class action and a jury trial is all a bit much.
In the meantime, if you're at all curious about the kinds of levels to which people go with trying to predict the cutoff check out this blog[1]. This is from Brian Rock [2], who every year collects data about a lot of marathons all over the world and then tries to guess the official cutoff for the Boston marathon. Very cool stuff!
[1]: https://runningwithrock.com/boston-marathon-cutoff-time-trac... [2]: https://runningwithrock.com/about-me/
Number of male and female entrants in the 18-39 age group are almost even, but the proportion of female entrants drops in the older age groups.
This pattern appears in 2024 and 2023 as well.
see https://registration.baa.org/2025/cf/Public/iframe_Statistic...
https://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/charity-program
Boston Marathon tour operators: https://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/plan/international... and https://www.baa.org/boston-marathon-international-tour-progr...
Abbott World Marathon Majors draw program: https://www.worldmarathonmajors.com/content-hub/majors-draw-...
I would have expected the opposite.
Boston allows "roughly" 25k participants, but that number fluctuates somewhat every year. If they allow 30k, the cutoff delta goes down. If they allowed an unlimited field, the cutoff delta would be 0, and you'd only have to worry about your published qualifying time.
y'all better safety-qualify at least -6 minutes tho, -7 if you can