Kona Slot Roll-Down: Chances a Slot Will Roll Down to You?

Should you go to the Kona Slot Roll-Down Ceremony? What are the chances a Kona slot might go unaccepted until it passes to you? The answers: yes, go; and the chances are slim, slimmer every year. But as odds get longer, it inevitably happens several times each year: a slot rolls down far beyond expectations, and some lucky triathlete, there on a whim, takes home an impossibly unexpected Kona slot.

Let's take a recent example: if you've finished Ironman Coeur d'Alene 2011 in the M50-54 age group that offers 5 slots, and you've finished in 16th place, should you just assume you've got no chance? Answer: yes, very likely it won't roll to you (and it didn't at IM CdA in 2011), but you never know.

Sometimes amazing things happen at roll-down. Look at M65-69, which offered 1 slot. Stunningly, the slot rolled down to 8th place. Absolutely unexpected; the guy who took the slot had finished in 16:33, nearly 4 hours later than the 1st place M65-69 finisher. In that age group, this sort of thing never happens. Yet, it did. You never know.

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.)

Ironman Louisville 2009 vs 2010: Impact of Difficult Weather Conditions

Our analysis of hardest and easiest ironman distance triathlons considers the differences from year to year in racing conditions, and makes appropriate adjustments as necessary to the overall ranking.  The difference between Ironman Louisville 2009 and 2010 merited such an adjustment. This year's stifling heat in Ironman Louisville led to an increase in the average finish time by 45+ minutes. Most of the change was in marathon times, resulting in the remarkable differences shown here. One outlier: W55-59 -- from 8 to 14 finishers, 2009 vs. 2010, nearly the same average time. Also see Correlation Between Bike and Run Splits 2009 vs. 2010 and North American Ironman DNF Analysis.