Qualifying for Boston in 2021 Will Be Harder than Ever

Boston Marathon Data Analysis, Part 3

Registration for the 2020 Boston Marathon has closed and there is a brand new set of data ready for analysis. If you are one of the runners who was accepted, congratulations! Qualifying for Boston is not easy, and as we will see shortly, it shows no signs of getting easier.

As you might remember from my first analysis, the qualifying standards needed to be adjusted in 2020 because so many people were being turned away. In fact, nearly 1 in 4 runners who applied in 2019 were rejected despite having ran fast enough to qualify. Although the 5 minute adjustment helped, another 3,161 people were turned away this year. This year you needed to beat your qualifying time by 1:39 to be accepted.

Cutoff Times:

2014: You needed to beat your qualifying time by 1 minute, 38 seconds
2,976 people turned away

2015: You needed to beat your qualifying time by1 minute, 2 seconds
1,947 people turned away