Younger women runners can qualify too easily for the Boston Marathon, while the standards for older women are too difficult, according to a statistical analysis to be published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance.

Paul Vanderburgh, a professor of health and sports science at the University of Dayton, looked at the age-group qualifying times for the Boston Marathon in comparison to each age group's world record. "The advantage of this model is that world bests are at the age-associated limits of human capability," Vanderburgh writes. "As such, they are less confounded by intensity, body composition, and fitness level."

Vanderburgh found that the men's standards were consistently around 50% slower than the world record for a given age group; given this consistency, Vanderburgh writes, the men's qualifying standards appear to be fair across all age groups.

Using this measure, the women's standards get harder with age; the older the age group, the closer in percentage terms to that age group's world record is necessary to run to qualify for Boston, Vanderburgh found. Conversely, the qualifying standards for the two youngest age groups, 18-34 and 35-39, are much slower than the 50%-of-age-group-world-record figure consistent across all men's age groups.

Specifically, "the women’s current [Boston qualifying] standards were too lenient by 10 minutes for the 18-54 age groups and too strict by 10 minutes for the 55-69 age groups and 35-95 min. for the 70+ age groups," Vanderburgh writes. A table showing the current womens' age-group standards and Vanderburgh's suggested revisions is below.

Vanderburgh notes that while the current qualifying standards favor younger women, they "yield gender parity in percentage of qualifiers. The suggested women’s [qualifying] standards, though fairer to all age groups, would lead to approximately half as many women qualifying as men."

Does Vanderburgh think the Boston Athletic Association will take his suggestions to heart?

"They might," Vanderburgh told Runner's World Newswire, "but in fairness to BAA, they may prefer the present standards because they promote gender equity in percentage of men and women who qualify. All depends on what the goals of the standards are. To my knowledge, however, there are no published goals of the standards."

Paul Vanderburgh's View on Women's Boston Marathon Qualifying Standards

Age Group 18-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80+ Current 3:35 3:40 3:45 3:55 4:00 4:10 4:25 4:40 4:55 5:10 5:25 Suggested 3:25 3:30 3:40 3:50 3:55 4:20 4:35 4:50 5:30 6:00 7:00













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