BREAKING DOWN BOSTON MARATHON NUMBERS

THE BOSTON GLOBE

The official results are in for the 2012 Boston Marathon, at least the rolling registration results for qualifiers.

The 2012 field will be fast, very fast, with 1,851 runners beating their qualifying times by more than 30 minutes, including 26 men in the 70-74 age group.

Translation: On Patriots Day, Hopkinton will welcome 26 septuagenarians capable of running four-hour marathons. Of all the qualifiers, 45 percent will be competing in the Boston Marathon for the first time, slightly fewer than in years past. And after annual high-volume contributors Canada, Great Britain, and Mexico, the largest number of foreign entrants will come from South Korea (105).

The numbers are part of a statistical treasure trove for organizers, entrants, and members of the larger distance-running community who obsess over finish times, mile splits, heart rates, and much more. Several spreadsheets provide snapshots of the 20,284 qualifiers entered in the 2012 field, which will reach approximately 27,000 with invited and charity runners. Additionally, the numbers provide insight into the race and its broad appeal. And they reconfirm that the Boston Athletic Association devised a fair registration system.

Despite a record fast registration last year and restructuring of the entry process this year, the demographics of the 2012 field look very similar to recent years. And that is precisely what the BAA wanted.

“The first thing one looks for are the points off the curve,’’ said BAA executive director Tom Grilk. “We ask, ‘Are there areas where there’s a big spike where we might not have expected to see it? Is there a lack of entrants where one wouldn’t have expected to see it?’ So far, that hasn’t happened. If one were to pick a word, it would be consistency.’’

Or, as BAA head coach Michael Pieroni added: “We just opened the door and what came in is what has come in historically.’’

Under the new system, runners registered in multiple, time-restricted waves over a two-week period. For example, runners who posted finishes 20 minutes or faster than their age and gender qualifying standards could enter when registration opened. Runners with finishes 10 minutes or faster and five minutes or faster could enter later during the first week. The cutoff line for accepted entrants ended up at 1 minute 14 seconds or faster than qualifying standards.

In almost all gender and age categories, the largest number of runners entered with times between 10 and 20 minutes faster than their qualifying standards. For men, the largest number of entrants fell into the minus-10-minutes, 18-34-year-old category with 733 runners. For women, the largest number of entrants came from the same age and speed category with 720. In age categories that spanned only five years, the award for largest group of male entrants went to the 690 runners in the minus-10-minutes, 45-49-year-old category. For women, the largest group consisted of 471 runners in the minus-10-minutes, 45-49-year-old category.

Not only did the data reveal the speed and strength in numbers of runners over 40, it also may put to rest a longstanding debate with younger runners. In the 18-34 age group, women are believed to be unfairly advantaged with a 3:40:59 qualifying time compared with 3:10:59 for men the same age. Under the new registration system, the Marathon accepted 2,567 women and 2,265 men 18-34. The gap between women and men entered in that age group, 53 percent vs. 47 percent, was not nearly as significant as many suspected it would be.

Overall, men accounted for 58 percent of qualified entrants, again very much in line with years past.

“That there wasn’t much deviation reflects well on the work that [our staff and statisticians] did,’’ said Grilk. “It reflects well on their predictive powers and, as much as anything, it reflects on the behavior of the runners. We have seen patterns of entry behavior over the years that didn’t change that much.’’

In an unpredictable quirk that intrigued organizers, not all of the runners eligible to enter during the first week of registration did so. Some waited until the second week for unknown reasons, though the BAA suspected some might have waited to see if friends or spouses had a good shot at gaining entry, too.

“You would have thought that given the sense of urgency from the past that those people who had the privilege of registering right away would have done so,’’ said race director Dave McGillivray.

Added Grilk: “There must be some pretty interesting back stories there.’’

The total number of runners who met the Marathon’s qualifying standards will climb to approximately 21,000 by race day, taking into account qualified, invited runners, such as defending age-group winners. Also, with a few thousand runners not making the cut, more qualified runners will be participating with charity numbers. But to ensure a safe and efficient start, charity runners with qualifying times will be placed in corrals that reflect their qualifying times.

If any numbers stood out to McGillivray, it was the absence of complaints, down from hundreds he received last year to a handful this year.

“That tells us a lot,’’ said McGillvray. “We may self-evaluate what we did and think that it worked well. But when our own customers and constituency is endorsing that, too, by virtue of the fact that there really wasn’t a lot of negative feedback, that told us that maybe we did the right thing.’’

As Grilk repeatedly added: “So far, so good.’’ But anyone in the marathon business knows there’s always a long way to go.