2016 Mountains 2 Beach Marathon Analysis

Mountains 2 Beach has been around since 2011 under a different name: Ojai 2 Ocean. In 2013 it changed it's name (not sure why?) though the course still starts in Ojai and ends at the beach in Ventura. In 2012, I paced the 4:25 group. The race was much smaller back then, no Expo, and there were sporadically placed paced groups (3:55, 4:10, 4:25 are some that I remember). There are far more pace groups now that it's bigger and a popular race for PRs and BQs. I saw a 3:23, 3:28, 3:33, 3:38, 3:43, etc. They aim for 2 minutes or better than the BQ standards because the cutoff has been at least a minute since 2014. I finished with the 3:38 group, and they had two pacers. One in the front, and then they had one in the back. They were great pacers too. Motivating, didn't go out too fast, and helpful. I have to say that the 3:38 pacer at the back is one of the reasons I was able to move my ass and get as close to my PR as I did. It was a battle at the end.

The finish area, though, was kind of chaotic. I actually understand now why the big races make you walk and walk and walk to the exit. I got stuck like 20-40 feet after the finish by spectators that were greeting their friends, and I could feel myself cramping. This would be the one area they have to address. It was a challenge just to get to the med tent if you needed it.

The race usually sells out early but they have a wait list and they also have an online system for bib transfer. I got a bib transfer via Facebook on the Thursday after Boston, though about a week after I did that I was selected from the waitlist so it seems like a race you could get lucky and squeeze into a month before.

It has about ~500 feet of climbing, and 1300 feet elevation loss - about a 700 feet net elevation loss. Not an extreme downhill but enough to give you a little boost without tearing up your quads. Weather is usually decent - around 60 and if it's a normal year, you have the marine layer so the sun stays away until about 11am.

This race was like a few others in that is bucked the trend - it has more finishers and a higher qualification rate in 2016.

AG Group	2015 Qualifiers	2015 AG Total	Percentage	2016 Qualifiers	2016 AG Total	Percentage
F18-34	51	225	22.67%	79	303	26.07%
F35-39	43	144	29.86%	60	176	34.09%
F40-44	54	156	34.62%	52	177	29.38%
F45-49	51	139	36.69%	61	149	40.94%
F50-54	28	77	36.36%	30	122	24.59%
F55-59	19	43	44.19%	20	49	40.82%
F60-64	2	10	20.00%	6	14	42.86%
F65-69	0	3	0.00%	4	9	44.44%
F70-74	0	2	0.00%	0	2	0.00%
F75-79	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%
F80+	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%
M18-34	34	156	21.79%	57	191	29.84%
M35-39	26	117	22.22%	48	147	32.65%
M40-44	36	159	22.64%	45	175	25.71%
M45-49	44	120	36.67%	77	177	43.50%
M50-54	28	106	26.42%	51	164	31.10%
M55-59	21	86	24.42%	34	110	30.91%
M60-64	10	27	37.04%	12	45	26.67%
M65-69	3	19	15.79%	9	27	33.33%
M70-74	4	9	44.44%	4	5	80.00%
M75-79	0	1	0.00%	0	4	0.00%
M80+	0	0	0.00%	0	0	0.00%
Totals	454	1599	28.39%	649	2046	31.72%

About 43% more qualifiers, and a jump of 3.4% in qualification rate.

The breakdown is interesting!

Margin	2016	Percentage	2017	Percentage
<1 minute	33	7.27%	25	3.85%
1-2 minutes	30	6.61%	31	4.78%
2-3 minutes	43	9.47%	48	7.40%
3-4 minutes	41	9.03%	36	5.55%
4-5 minutes	36	7.93%	42	6.47%
5-10 minutes	106	23.35%	179	27.58%
10-20 minutes	89	19.60%	143	22.03%
20> minutes	76	16.74%	145	22.34%
Totals	454		649

In 2015, the Squeaker Pack was 40%! In 2016 it's a 28% which is closer to the average we've been seeing.

So with no cutoff being the previous update, what does this above average Mountains 2 Beach performance mean?

AG Group	2016 Qualifiers	20156 AG Total	Percentage	2017 Qualifiers	2017 AG Total	Percentage
F18-34	4728	38443	12.30%	4039	37073	10.89%
F35-39	2160	15291	14.13%	1974	15272	12.93%
F40-44	2174	14656	14.83%	1868	14188	13.17%
F45-49	2199	10650	20.65%	1968	10996	17.90%
F50-54	1359	6955	19.54%	1310	7348	17.83%
F55-59	714	3514	20.32%	627	3523	17.80%
F60-64	315	1448	21.75%	328	1556	21.08%
F65-69	91	453	20.09%	107	500	21.40%
F70-74	21	131	16.03%	19	152	12.50%
F75-79	3	26	11.54%	1	21	4.76%
F80+	1	4	25.00%	4	10	40.00%
M18-34	4211	34264	12.29%	3439	32396	10.62%
M35-39	2129	18095	11.77%	1795	17452	10.29%
M40-44	2410	19718	12.22%	2050	18603	11.02%
M45-49	2945	16693	17.64%	2481	16659	14.89%
M50-54	2250	13109	17.16%	1906	13114	14.53%
M55-59	1481	7966	18.59%	1336	8306	16.08%
M60-64	886	4232	20.94%	873	4371	19.97%
M65-69	391	1762	22.19%	379	1869	20.28%
M70-74	121	598	20.23%	97	591	16.41%
M75-79	25	159	15.72%	30	173	17.34%
M80+	5	36	13.89%	9	40	22.50%
Totals	30619	208203	14.71%	26640	204213	13.05%

Totals are still way down. 13% decrease in total qualifiers.

Margin	2016	Percentage	2017	Percentage
<1 minute	1685	5.50%	1497	5.62%
1-2 minutes	1663	5.43%	1505	5.65%
2-3 minutes	1682	5.49%	1413	5.30%
3-4 minutes	1530	5.00%	1320	4.95%
4-5 minutes	1447	4.73%	1229	4.61%
5-10 minutes	6438	21.03%	5692	21.37%
10-20 minutes	8657	28.27%	7449	27.96%
20> minutes	7517	24.55%	6535	24.53%
Totals	30619		26640

Squeaker Pack is nearly identical year-over-year = 26.15% vs 26.14%

What is the total number of qualifiers up to this point for the 2016 qualification year? 26452

We have more runners than that in our 2017 qualifier pool, so there will be some kind of cutoff with the assumptions we are making.

The 26452nd runner, sorting my qualification margin descending, has a margin of...

7 seconds

This is really a marginal number. I wonder what the BAA would do if they ended up with this small a cutoff. Would they let everyone in, or hold to the exact capacity? It's an interesting question.

The next two races we have to analyze are from the same weekend: Bayshore Marathon and Ottawa Marathon.

The weather for these races was hot, and just glancing at some other aggregator sites, the numbers are down. I have a feeling that 7 seconds is going to be erased again once I get those results in. Bummer is that they are not in a great format for me to automate the download (because I don't feel like getting carpal tunnel, while I click next, save, like 1000+ times), so I will probably have to pull them from a major aggregation site and hope they don't block me :)