2016 Boston Marathon Qualifier Stats up to October 20, 2014

The current trend for the cutoff  for the 2016 Boston Marathon is BQ minus 1 minute 47 seconds.

The qualification window for the 2016 Boston Marathon began on September 13, 2014. Of the 25 “Top Qualifying Races”, ten have already occurred this year. Data has been analyzed for these races so far (data for the Berlin Marathon was not available for the analysis).

Event	2014 Date	2013 Participants	2013 BQs	2014 Participants	2014 BQs
Erie Marathon	September 14	978	312	959	317
St. George Marathon	October 4	5,817	1,198	5,805	997
Portland Marathon	October 5	6,945	504	6,429	429
Twin Cities Marathon	October 5	8,855	1,010	8,853	1,041
Chicago Marathon	October 12	38,854	3,527	40,581	4,004
Steamtown Marathon	October 12	2,165	377	2,184	431
Baystate Marathon	October 19	1,304	301	1,531	378
Columbus Marathon	October 19	5,523	611	5,445	620
Toronto Waterfront Marathon	October 19	3,604	487	3,971	654
Total		74,045	8,327	75,758	8,871
Notes: 1) Participants = Finishers with a finish time 2) BQ = Participants who met the minimum Boston Qualifying Standard for their age and gender

The 2016 Boston Marathon cutoff can be estimated comparing the year versus year trends from these 9 races. The aggregate data for these races is shown below for 2013 and 2014.

2013 Data for the selected races.
Age Group	PARTICIPANTS	BQ	BQ2014	BQ/Σ	BQ2014/ Σ
F18-24	3,561	269	251	7.6%	7.0%
F25-29	6,545	518	490	7.9%	7.5%
F30-34	6,012	534	502	8.9%	8.3%
F35-39	5,632	651	605	11.6%	10.7%
F40-44	4,688	577	541	12.3%	11.5%
F45-49	3,089	518	492	16.8%	15.9%
F50-54	2,062	354	334	17.2%	16.2%
F55-59	962	160	157	16.6%	16.3%
F60-64	405	83	78	20.5%	19.3%
F65-69	120	19	17	15.8%	14.2%
F70-74	34	6	6	17.6%	17.6%
F75-79	8	1	1	12.5%	12.5%
F80+				0.0%	0.0%
M18-24	2,800	212	204	7.6%	7.3%
M25-29	5,334	489	466	9.2%	8.7%
M30-34	6,555	503	461	7.7%	7.0%
M35-39	6,568	648	599	9.9%	9.1%
M40-44	6,625	685	615	10.3%	9.3%
M45-49	4,896	750	705	15.3%	14.4%
M50-54	3,945	576	533	14.6%	13.5%
M55-59	2,330	397	382	17.0%	16.4%
M60-64	1,183	228	216	19.3%	18.3%
M65-69	472	104	99	22.0%	21.0%
M70-74	159	40	39	25.2%	24.5%
M75-79	47	4	4	8.5%	8.5%
M80+	13	1	1	7.7%	7.7%
Total	74,045	8,327	7,798	11.2%	10.5%
Notes: BQ = Participants who met the minimum BQ Standard for their age and gender. BQ2014 = Participants who met the BQ Standard for 2014, which was BQ Standard minus 1 minute 02 seconds.

The data analysis for for the 2014 editions of the same races as above.
The general trends are: 
1) More participants,
2) More people and higher percentage of people meeting the minimum standard,
3) More people and higher percentage of people meeting the minimum standard minus 1m2s.

2014 Data for the selected races
Age Group	PARTICIPANTS	BQ	BQ2014	BQ/ Σ	BQ2014/ Σ
F18-24	3,694	311	288	8.4%	7.8%
F25-29	6,693	613	569	9.2%	8.5%
F30-34	6,062	584	551	9.6%	9.1%
F35-39	5,802	690	655	11.9%	11.3%
F40-44	5,070	610	571	12.0%	11.3%
F45-49	3,351	581	546	17.3%	16.3%
F50-54	2,060	314	290	15.2%	14.1%
F55-59	1,069	184	174	17.2%	16.3%
F60-64	429	79	71	18.4%	16.6%
F65-69	140	26	25	18.6%	17.9%
F70-74	42	7	7	16.7%	16.7%
F75-79	11			0.0%	0.0%
F80+				0.0%	0.0%
M18-24	2,696	233	217	8.6%	8.0%
M25-29	5,371	531	501	9.9%	9.3%
M30-34	6,465	577	545	8.9%	8.4%
M35-39	6,598	618	566	9.4%	8.6%
M40-44	6,571	681	630	10.4%	9.6%
M45-49	5,184	799	743	15.4%	14.3%
M50-54	3,966	649	593	16.4%	15.0%
M55-59	2,501	400	380	16.0%	15.2%
M60-64	1,247	245	238	19.6%	19.1%
M65-69	501	100	94	20.0%	18.8%
M70-74	177	33	32	18.6%	18.1%
M75-79	50	5	5	10.0%	10.0%
M80+	8	1	1	12.5%	12.5%
Total	75,758	8,871	8,292	11.7%	10.9%
Notes: BQ = Participants who met the minimum BQ Standard for their age and gender.BQ2014 = Participants who met the BQ Standard for 2014, which was BQ Standard minus 1 minute 02 seconds.

The BQ cutoff can be predicted by looking at the total number of people who raced in 2013 autumn races and met the cutoff for the 2015 race (called BQ2014 in the tables above - 2014 being the application year), and projecting a cutoff for the 2016  race so that the same number of people qualify.

More simply put, last year at this time, 7798 people were 1m02s under the BQ Standard to meet the BQ cutoff for the 2015 race; how much time difference would be required to ensure 7798 people from this year's events would qualify for the 2016 race?

The answer is 1 minute and 47 seconds. This represents the current cutoff - assuming the trends observed in these 9 marathons hold true for all Boston Qualifying marathons.

Age Group	PARTICIPANTS	BQ2015	BQ2015/ Σ
F18-24	3,694	269	7.3%
F25-29	6,693	544	8.1%
F30-34	6,062	514	8.5%
F35-39	5,802	617	10.6%
F40-44	5,070	531	10.5%
F45-49	3,351	516	15.4%
F50-54	2,060	273	13.3%
F55-59	1,069	172	16.1%
F60-64	429	69	16.1%
F65-69	140	25	17.9%
F70-74	42	7	16.7%
F75-79	11		0.0%
F80+			0.0%
M18-24	2,696	206	7.6%
M25-29	5,371	468	8.7%
M30-34	6,465	505	7.8%
M35-39	6,598	530	8.0%
M40-44	6,571	575	8.8%
M45-49	5,184	703	13.6%
M50-54	3,966	552	13.9%
M55-59	2,501	364	14.6%
M60-64	1,247	227	18.2%
M65-69	501	89	17.8%
M70-74	177	31	17.5%
M75-79	50	5	10.0%
M80+	8	1	12.5%
Total	75,758	7,793	10.3%

Using a cutoff of 1 minute 47 seconds, 7793 people would qualify for the Boston Marathon based on their 2014 race results. This is approximately equal  to the 7798 people who qualified for the Boston Marathon based on the same race results for the 2013 year.

This all assumes:

1) People's motivation for applying to the Boston Marathon remains the same for the 2015 and 2016 races .

2) The proportion of applicants from the feeder races remains the same for the 2015 and 2016 Boston Marathon remains the same.

3) The allocation of General Entry slots for the 2015 and 2016 Boston Marathon remains the same.