Qualifying For Boston: Correlation between Course Speed and Qualified Runners

Have your mind set on qualifying for Kona? Think your chances of qualifying on any 26.2 mile marathon course varies much? Turns out, it does. Not unexpectedly, the events with the fastest overall times yield a higher percentage of Boston Qualifiers.

But what struck us is how clear the pattern is, as shown in the chart, which show the correlation between average marathon speed and percent of Boston Qualifiers for each race. (Also see our analysis of Boston Qualifying Times and our Complete Boston Marathon Coverage.)