Interest in Qualifying for Boston Still at an All-Time High

In the week following the tragic bombing at, and suspension of, Boston Marathon 2013, we reported that interest in qualifying for Boston 2014 had increased dramatically. Runner's weren't about to be deterred by terrorism, and many explored the idea of racing Boston 2014 to be part of the rebirth of Boston's greatest race.

Based on the number of google searches including the phrase 'qualify for Boston Marathon' since 2008, trends showed interest was up to 15x greater than normal. A few months have passed, we wondered: is interest in qualifying for Boston 2014 still higher than in previous years?

Answer: Yes, absolutely, at a consistent rate of 22% to 25% higher than in 2012, and even higher vs 2010 (35% to 50%).

We analyzed and indexed 'qualify for Boston' google searches from the months of June and July 2013, and compared the results to the same periods going back to 2009, as shown in the chart above.

The longer term, weekly trend is also consistent, as shown below, along with a geographic heat map indicating states with strongest interest, and recent Top 10 related search phrases.

For more, visit our comprehensive Boston Marathon Coverage; to dig deeper, visit our Stats/Results/Analysis Archive with more than 200 endurance sports analytic posts and reports; and for everything else, visit our site map.

Ironman 70.3 Racine 2013 Results Analysis

2014: See our analysis and photos of Ironman 70.3 Racine 2014 at bit.ly/IronmanRacine

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2013

Nearly 2,200 determined triathletes braved a challenging swim in a churning Lake Michigan to finish the Ironman 70.3 Racine 2013 edition in an average finish time of 6 hours and 10 minutes. The swim took a longer than average at 45 minutes, compared to a roughly typical 40 minutes, but athletes rode a 3 hour bike split -- exactly the same as in 2012 -- and then cut 10 minutes from 2012's 13.1 mile run to finish with an average time of 2:14. The 6:10 average finish time is slightly higher than the average time to finish a half Ironman, based on our analysis of dozens of events around the globe.

Details for the 2013 race, as well as comparable stats for the 2012 race, are below, overall, by age group, by split, by year, plus correlations between bike and run splits and finally, DNS and DNF averages. For more, see our comprehensive Stats/Results/Analysis archive to compare these results with more than 40 other Ironman 70.3 races.

Ironman Lake Placid 2012 Results Analysis

2013 Results: Ironman Lake Placid 2013 Results Analysis

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Ironman Lake Placid 2012 was a tough one for the nearly 2,273 triathletes who finished the race, and even tougher on the 11% who started but didn't finish. The average finish time of 13:30 was 29 minutes slower than in 2011, and was the slowest overall time in the last four years. Most of the difference resulted from a noticeably slower bike split of 6:37, and the challenge of those tough 112 miles significantly pushed average marathon times to more than 5 hours. See our complete results analysis below. 

For more, see our comprehensive  Ironman Lake Placid Coverage and Results Archive.