Brian Rock 
This is the second year in which I maintained the Boston Marathon Cutoff Time Tracker and the third year in which I did some analysis leading to a prediction. I wrote a reflection on my initial prediction here and on last year’s tracker here. In each case, I was in the ballpark. But I wasn’t … Read more
Last week was the registration period for the 2027 Boston Marathon. I published this final projection for the cutoff time, anticipating a cutoff of 5:20 to 5:30. This was based on two different methodologies that yielded projections of 5:13 and 5:09, combined with an assumption that the actual outcome would err on the higher side … Read more
It’s the week we’ve all been waiting for: registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon. Over the course of the past year, I’ve been tracking results from marathons across the country (and the world) to project the likely cutoff time. The last races were held last Sunday, and at this point data is all collected. So … Read more
Last summer, the BAA announced a new downhill results index that would penalize qualifying times from races with excessive net elevation drop. This applied to the various Tunnel races, REVEL races, and a handful of other races. At the start of this qualifying period, I predicted that these changes would likely have a small impact … Read more
The Sydney Marathon returned last weekend for its second year as an official part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors. Competition among the elite men continued to grow. The winner set another course record with other men close on his heels. The women’s race wasn’t as tight and the winner didn’t set a new course … Read more
This is a question that’s been lingering throughout the year. The 2025 Berlin Marathon was one of the first races in the qualifying period for the 2027 Boston Marathon. The weather was unseasonably warm and number of BQ’s at the race was much lower than usual. Certainly that means fewer applicants. But just how big … Read more
Last month, BAA announced a new lottery for runners who met their Boston qualifying marathon time but did not make the cutoff. They will put 1,000 spots aside for these runners, suggesting that the odds of getting in this way will be about 8 to 10%. But an interesting side effect of this lottery is … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, a new study was released that analyzed pacing data from the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Boston Marathons. The title, “Pacing strategy patterns and performance outcomes in marathon runners,” is interesting. But when you dig into the methodology, I’m not sure they actually measured and analyzed what they expected to examine. … Read more
I’m currently working on a longer article about age group winners at the World Major Marathons. I’d been exploring the data a bit, and a simple question came to me while I was out for my run this week: which of the races have the fastest age group winners? I was curious if one or … Read more
This week, the Boston Athletic Association made a big announcement about registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon: there would be a new lottery for runners who met their qualifying time but missed the cutoff time. They also announced the dates for registration: September 14 to September 18. This means that the weekend of September 12-13 … Read more