Boston Marathon 2014 Registration Analysis and Timeline

As of 9/18/13, with interest in running Boston 2014 at an all-time high, the increase of accepted entrants raised to 36,000 vs recent years' norm of 27,000, the dynamics of qualification and the entry process have been dramatic. Following the qualification entry rules at baa.org (and listed below), the rolling entry process has been underway and steady reports and estimates from the BAA and RunnersWorld.com reveal an extraordinarily complex picture of how the 36,000 accepted entrants appear to be allocated.

A reported 7,900 qualifiers had submitted applications in hopes of securing one of 5,000 remaining qualifying entries; when registration ends on 9/20/13, BAA will determine a revised -- faster, in 2012 it was BQ time minus 1 minute 14 seconds -- qualifying time to confirm the final 5,000 qualifying entrants. Charity entries may still be available afterwards, however.



Late April, 2013: In the days after terrorists' bombs ended Boston Marathon 2013, a tremendous surge of interest in participating inBoston Marathon 2014.

Our analysis shows 'Qualify for Boston Marathon' is one of the hottest searches on google, and compared to search trends at the same time of year since 2008, the interest is nothing short of extraordinary.
Here's our hypothesis about why we're seeing this skyrocketing demand to know about how to qualify to race Boston in 2014. It doesn't appear to be the usual 'I hope I can qualify' interest, which is steady year to year. The exceptional volume of search and visitor traffic certainly prove more than ever, runners want to be in Boston

But more importantly, the leap in interest seems to suggest more of a fighting spirit. Runners are thinking: dammit, I'm going to run Boston to prove we aren't afraid of evil, we're going to face it head on, to show once and for all that no one's going to mess with us again. Runners see it as a sort of patriotic duty, to unite in a tribute to honor those who suffered in the tragedy and to take back the legendary event.

Boston Marathon Statistics, Data and Analysis

The Boston Marathon Media Guide is a great resource for everything from race history winners, and number of finishers to course records and elite runners participating in this year's event. But there's so much more to know about the race; we're here to provide it. 

After running Boston 13 times, and covering the race from the media side for years, I've analyzed the race from all angles. And here's the result: just about everything else worth knowing as you prepare for the race.

Ironman Marathon or Regular Marathon: Which is faster?

Is it possible that a marathon in an Ironman Triathlon -- after swimming 2.4 miles and riding 112 miles -- might be faster than simply running a regular marathon?

Yes, it is. When you look at finish times of several top marathons and several top Ironman triathlons -- each of which we've competed in -- you'll see that an Ironman marathon can be faster, on average.


The marathons at Ironman Austria, Ironman Switzerland, New York City Marathon and Chicago Marathon are all in the 4:25 range. Ironman New Zealand and RnR Arizona Marathon are nearly identical at about 4:35, on average. RnR San Diego Marathon's average finish time of 4:52 roughly equals the average of 25 Ironman marathons, and is only a few minutes faster than Ironman marathons in Lake Placid, Canada, Florida and Arizona.

Very interesting, all fact-based, nice trivia, but still, perplexing . . . how can it be?

It's a bit of an illusion, actually.

A first reality check is our own experience running marathons on each of these courses. Our regular marathon times were roughly 40 to 45 minutes faster than on Ironman courses. Our fastest marathon was a 2:54 in Boston; the same year we ran a 3:36 personal best Ironman marathon in Lake Placid.

The next check is comparing the average of 25 top marathons -- 4:24 -- with the average marathon at 25 top Ironman triathlons -- 4:50 -- a difference of 25 minutes.

The reality is, there's more to an average marathon finish time than meets the eye. A very recent trend has shown more women than men run regular marathons; but Ironman triathletes tend to be male. Women's regular marathon times are slower than men's; see our analysis of New York City marathon results and number of runners per age group, for example. In contrast, it's not uncommon for men to represent 75% or more of the field at an ironman triathlon. And the men run faster ironman marathons.

We'll be presenting a side-by-side age group marathon comparison shortly. Until then, you have to admit, it's pretty interesting that an ironman marathon can be faster than a regular marathon.


Unfinished Business in Boston: Projecting Non-Finishers' Finish Times

By Raymond Britt

It's about time. Literally. It's about declaring projected finish times for the thousands of Boston Marathon runners who were not allowed to finish after the terrible tragedy suspended the race.

Three weeks have passed since the tragedy, and yet there is no resolution for those thousands who have every right to declare themselves Boston Finishers, given the circumstances of the day. Time for closure. Time to define your projected finish time. The BAA's resolution isn't ready yet, which is reasonable, given the myriad of other issues they face.

Until then, it's time to step up with projected finish times, and we've taken on the assignment (unofficially). We ran the numbers, slicing and dicing the data every which way (see notes on Methodology, below), and after hours and hours of detailed analysis, I'll get to the punchline.

Projecting Your Boston Marathon 2013 Finish Time

What might your finish time have been?  It may be as simple as this:
  • If you were stopped after 35k, your effective finish time may = 35k time multiplied by 1.23
  • If you had crossed the 40k, your effective finish time could =  40k time multiplied by 1.06
Is this 100% accurate? No. But I'd expect our projected results will be within a minute or two in a wide majority of the cases.

But: One exception will be the runners who went out too fast, too early, and had hit the wall, slowing to a crawl. See our Correlation Between First and Second Half Split Times to gauge if you fit in that group.

Will the BAA's resolution be different? It very well could be. We don't know what direction they will go. But one thing is clear: our analysis here is unofficial; BAA's will be the official resolution. 

Methodology

Background: our perspective on this topic comes from several dimensions. We know the course intimately; 13 consecutive Boston finishes. We've been presenting in-depth coverage of the Boston Marathon for years, see www.RaceBoston.com. We've developed and posted dozens of analytics and diagnostics about Boston; see our Stats/Results/Analysis archive for more than 200 posts analyzing top marathon and triathlon events. We're not new to projecting finish times based on incomplete data; see many examples in our Race Statistics/Results Analysis archives. Most recently, we projected finish times of the new Ironman 70.3 St. George within 1% of actual.]


We noted the multipliers above were 'deceptively simple' because it took a great deal of work to confidently calculate the appropriate value. 

Our approach is illustrated in an example of our analysis of all Illinois finishers in the 50-54 age group. This included 53 men, 19 women. We did extensive analysis of this sampling of runners, tabulating their 5k splits from start to finish, comparing an contrasting splits from sub-3 hour finishers to 4+ hour runners, from Boston re-qualifiers to those who, well, didn't come close to requalifying. 

See data below, from drill-down detail for each finisher, up to average splits as a percent of total, which we used to calculate the 35k and 40k multipliers.

Male Finishers Aged 50-54 from Illinois






Female Finishers Aged 50-54 from Illinois











For more on our extensive Boston Marathon analysis, see our Complete Boston Marathon Coverage. For even more, see our archive of 200+ Race Stats/Results Analysis posts 
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Boston Marathon 2013 Results Analysis

The horrific terror attack at 2013's Boston Marathon finish line has perhaps changed the race forever. The moment the bombs went off, any and all individual race-related expectations and ambitions for the day were immediately dismissed. Finishing the race was no longer the objective; saving lives, and preventing additional disaster became the essential priorities.

The race was and will remain incomplete. In the wake of the tragedy, the need for race statistics and analysis may as well be meaningless. However, as many have urged, we cannot let terrorists stop us; we cannot back down; we must remain proud; we must carry on; we must celebrate achievements now, more than ever, because the attack reminds us that there are no guarantees about tomorrow -- so we should seize the day with honor and distinction.

Those who suffered at the hands of cowardly villains were originally at the race to cheer, to support, to hail runners' success.  They would want all runners -- finishers and almost-finishers -- to take pride in a job well done, an accomplishment years in the making for most: racing in the legendary Boston Marathon.

Undoubtedly, the courageous victims and survivors of the tragedy would insist on celebrating success on the hallowed course, and it's in that spirit that we present our comprehensive Boston Marathon 2013 Results Analysis.

Results

The race was ended by explosions with 4:09 on the finish clocks, though this timing is likely elapsed time for the 3rd wave runners, which began their race 40 minutes after the elites crossed the starting line. Between the elite start and 4:09 at the finish line, this is what happened:
  • Entrants: Nearly 27,000 runners were officially entered (approximately 22,000 qualified and 5,000 ran for charities)
  • Starters: Of those entrants, 87%, or 23,336 chose to compete; 13% Did Not Start (DNS)
  • Finishers: 17,580, or 75% of starters, completed the race before the terrorist attack shut the race down.
  • Almost Finishers:  4,496 had reached 24.8 miles, but were not allowed to continue
  • Average Finish Time*: 3 hours, 29 minutes (* for the 17,580 finishers)
  • Projected Average Finish Time: We expect the race would have averaged 3:45 if all runners finished
  • Average Finish Time of Boston 2010, before Qualifying times were reduced by 5 minutes: 3:50
  • Effective improvement in field of runners in 2013: 5 minutes faster
Direct analytic comparisons with other Boston Marathon results are, at first glance, naturally impossible, because Boston 2013 was unfinished, final results never to be completely tallied. And we do make adjustments below to accomodate a fair comparison. Bust first, the basics: actual comparisons between 2010, 2012, and 2013.



Adjustments And Comparative Results

However, we did want to know how results of the 17,580 Boston 2013 finishers compared with other years, so we modified the datasets, to allow for a truly comparable set of comparisons. The adjustment: compare results for only the first 17,580 finishers in the 2010 (conditions most like 2013) and 2012 (the outlier, due to unprecedented heat). So here it is, the adjusted direct comparisons.












Elite Race Results


Lelisa Desisa and Rita Jeptoo have won the men's and women's divisions, respectively, of the 2013 Boston Marathon. Top US finishers were Jason Hartman for the men and Shalane Flanagan for the women. Top 10 results, as posted on the official race site are below.

Also see our complete Boston Marathon 2013 Results Analysis for all runners.  



For more, see our Complete Boston Marathon Coverage.

Ironman Kona 2013 Results Analysis: Finish Times and Splits by Age Group, Comparisons 2009 to 2013, and more

RunTri's Ironman Kona Results Analysis and Photos

 by Raymond Britt

Ironman Kona 2013, the 35th anniversary Ironman Triathlon World Championship, was remarkable in several notable measures:
  • Average Finish Time: 11:06 -- easily the fastest pace since 2009 (why so fast? see our Kona Legacy Lottery Theory)
  • Splits: swim 1:11; bike 5:35 (at 51%, consistent with our 50% rule); run 4:09; transitions 0:09
  • Finishers: a record 1,972 (2012 = 1883); 
  • DNF: a lower than average 4.2% -- 1.1% on the bike, 3.1% on the run
  • Bike vs Run Correlation: notable for a preponderance of faster runs after fast bike splits
  • Women's Course Record: Mirinda Carfrae's record marathon vs Top 10 Women Finishers
Here's the tale of Ironman Kona 2013 in 13 charts: overall, by age group, by split, by year, by participants, by bike/run correlation, by Geography and by Top 10 finishers by country and age group. 











What could be the reason for these impressive improvements? Weather conditions usually account for most differences. However, the gains were so impressive, we have a different theory:
  • Beginning in 2012, the Ironman Legacy Lottery reallocated slots 100 (which used to be distributed among all general lottery entrants) to athletes who have completed 12 or more Ironman Triathlons. 
  • Proportion of change in the field: 100 slots is about 5% of finishers
  • Triathletes with 12 or more Ironman finishes are certain to race more efficiently and faster than a novice. 
  • Impact of 100 Ironman Legacy Lottery Slots: seems to have added most athletes to: M40 +49, M50 +28, M45 +22






For more, see our complete Ironman Kona Coverage, Qualifying for Kona, Kona Qualifying Race Schedule 2013/2014, our analysis of Top 30 Toughest/Easiest Ironman Events, and the site's archive of more than 200 Stats/Results/Analysis posts.

Ironman Kona 2013 Top Women Finishers Race Performance and Results Analysis



Live tracking can be found at Ironman.com. For Starters. see our Kona article in the Saturday October 11, 2013 Wall Street Journal, and highlights from our past analysis, and race photos.












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