Data-driven evaluation of the Boston marathon qualifying times

Abstract

The Boston Marathon is one of the most prestigious running races in the world. From its inception in 1897, popularity grew to a point in 1970 where qualifying times were implemented to cap the number of participants. Currently, women’s qualifying times in each age group are thirty minutes slower than the men’s qualifying times equating to a 16.7% adjustment for the 18-34 age group, decreasing with age to a 10.4% adjustment for the 80+ age group. This setup somewhat counter-intuitively implies that women become faster with age relative to men. We present a data-driven approach to determine qualifying standards that lead to an equal proportion of qualifiers in each age category and gender. We had to exclude the 75-79 and 80+ age groups from analysis due to limited data. When minimizing the difference in proportion of men and women qualifying, the women’s times for the 65-69 and 70-74 age groups are 4-5 minutes slower than the current qualifying standard, while they are 0 to 3 minutes faster for all other age groups.