Brian Rock 
With the Boston Marathon registration period opening on Monday, I’ve been trying to tie up a few loose ends when it comes to predicting the cutoff time for 2026. One of those unanswered questions was how much the Sydney Marathon results would matter. Another is whether Canadian runners will choose to skip Boston. Earlier this … Read more
We’re getting to the end of the qualifying period for the 2026 Boston Marathon, and all signs are pointing towards a cutoff time in excess of five minutes. But there’s one big unanswered question that could influence where things actually land: how much do the results of the Sydney Marathon matter? On the one hand, … Read more
The Richmond Marathon just sold out, and it’s not alone. It’s part of a broader trend that’s been developing the last few years along with the recent boom in marathon participation. I first noticed this over the summer, when Philly sold out months earlier than usual. Just a couple of weeks later, Twin Cities followed … Read more
The Abbott World Marathon Majors are a series of seven races, including the Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City Marathon and – as of 2025 – Sydney Marathons. The Six Star Finishers are people who have finished the original six races (not including Sydney). The host, Abbott, maintains a Hall of Fame with … Read more
Garmin typically releases four feature updates throughout the year. On August 19, 2025, they announced their Q3 update for the year – and rolled out a bunch of new features to the fenix 8 family. These feature updates have been a contentious topic over the past year or so, with some users complaining that their … Read more
For the past nine months, I’ve tracked data about the number of finishers and qualifiers at marathons around the world to project the likely cutoff time for the 2026 Boston Marathon. With the qualifying period winding down, that projection has stabilized around 5:30. A common – and fair – critique of the methodology behind this … Read more
Earlier this year, a new research study was published that suggested that hopping could make you faster. As is usually the case, this led to headlines in running related media outlets suggesting that runners could follow the experiment protocol to get faster. I first heard about the study because someone on Reddit shared it – … Read more
Last month, I noticed that the Philly Marathon and Twin Cities Marathon had both sold out earlier than usual. That got me wondering how widespread of a phenomena this was, and last week I gathered the data on four more marathons: Colorado, Denver, Detroit, and Miami. As if to illustrate the point that races are … Read more
Last summer, Garmin released the new fenix 8, introducing a new top of the line watch and creating some separation from the cheaper Forerunner line. But this summer, Garmin released the new Forerunner 570 and 970 – and there’s now much less daylight between the fenix and the Forerunner. Historically, there weren’t a lot of … Read more
Feature image by Nils Huenerfuerst on Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 4.0. This summer, two popular marathons sold out far earlier than is typical: Philly and Twin Cities. In both cases, I saw someone ask – perplexed – if these races were really on pace to sell out. And days later, they were both full. … Read more