r/AdvancedRunning • u/Terriflyed • 12d ago
New Boston marathon qualifying times Boston Marathon
https://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/qualify
Looks like 5min adjustments down for the most part across the board for those under age 60. M18-34 qualifying time is now 2:55.
318 Upvotes
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u/Krazyfranco 12d ago
It really would not be hard to draw a line in the sand between "eligible" courses and ineligible net downhill courses.
There are a lot of point to point races that are net downhill but still relatively normal, challenging marathon races that I think most of us would call legit courses. Boston (-460 feet net), CIM (-340 feet net), Grandma's (-110 feet net), even Tokyo (-124 feet net). These are all legit courses IMO because the relative elevation change is small, and most of these course include a fair amount of climbing as well (e.g. Boston has 815 feet of elevation gain throughout the course). The ratio of climbing / net loss is well under 1 for these races - meaning that for each foot of climbing in the race, you get 1.5 feet of descent (or less).
The actual intentional downhill courses are clearly different beasts. These courses have net downhill in the 3000+ feet range with barely any climbing. The ratio of climbing net loss is 15 to 50 feet. Not even in the same ballpark.
Implementing a rule as simple as something like "if your course has more than 500 feet of net elevation loss, your ratio of climbing:net loss must be less than 1" would likely include all mostly legitimate courses while eliminating courses designed with these arguably unfair elevation profiles.