New York City Marathon Analysis - 2015 BQs vs 2016 BQs

The 2014 New York City Marathon was run on Sunday November 2, 2014. This event falls in the 2016 Boston Marathon Qualification period. This marathon is listed as one of the top 25 feeder marathons for the Boston Marathon. There were more finishers this year than last; however, there were fewer people meeting the minimum BQ standard times this year. There were also fewer people meeting the 2015 BQ Cutoff Time (BQ Standard minus 1m 2s).

New York City Marathon BQ Comparison
Age Group	2015 Qualifying Year			2016 Qualifying Year
	Finishers	BQ	BQ2015	Finishers	BQ	BQ2015
F18-34	7,365	438	410	7,532	431	405
F35-39	3,250	238	219	3,378	206	195
F40-44	3,528	301	281	3,539	261	245
F45-49	2,477	317	297	2,643	279	260
F50-54	1,661	199	187	1,835	209	190
F55-59	791	99	94	896	126	118
F60-64	329	41	39	400	43	42
F65-69	102	16	15	121	11	11
F70-74	36	3	3	43	2	1
F75-79	3	-	-	9	1	1
F80+	4	2	1	2	1	1
M18-34	7,457	443	423	7,246	395	373
M35-39	5,009	285	262	4,939	254	237
M40-44	5,985	414	386	5,892	332	305
M45-49	4,744	416	391	4,630	394	373
M50-54	3,845	378	347	3,762	325	304
M55-59	1,857	192	182	1,902	174	163
M60-64	1,101	125	120	1,048	116	112
M65-69	383	46	45	415	51	48
M70-74	153	21	18	153	15	13
M75-79	39	5	4	38	3	3
M80+	15	1	1	10	-	-
Total	50,134	3,980	3,725	50,433	3,629	3,400
Notes: 1) Races for 2015 Qualifying Year are races that were run prior to September 13, 2014. 2) Races for 2016 Qualifying Year are races that were run after September 13, 2014. 3) BQ indicates the number of people who met the minimum Boston Qualifying Standard for their age and gender 4) BQ2015 indicates the number of people who were under the cut-off for the 2015 Boston Marathon. The cut-off was 1minute and 2 seconds below BQ standard. 5) The Value BQ2015 under 2016 Qualifying Year header is used for comparison purposes. It indicates the number of people who ran a race in the 2016 qualifying year that had a time under the 2015 cutoff.

Using this race to predict the trend for the 2015 cutoff, assuming the same number of participants applying (etc., etc., etc.,), since there were fewer people meeting the BQ2015 time standard, you would expect that this would shift the cutoff time downwards, making it less difficult to qualify for the 2016 Boston Marathon than the 2015 Boston Marathon.