This week, the Boston Athletic Association dropped a bombshell of an announcement – that qualifying times from downhill marathons will be subject to an adjustment starting with the 2027 Boston Marathon.
As the competition to get into Boston has become more intense, runners’ feelings about downhill marathons have become equally intense. Steep downhill races – like REVEL Big Cottonwood – help runners achieve faster times by dropping thousands of feet over the course of the race.
To some people, this is a reasonable advantage that they can control – just like shoes, weather, and fuel. To others, it’s tantamount to cheating.
While opinions may vary, one thing does not: downhill marathons do give runners significant time advantages. Although some people have tried to argue otherwise, I analyzed the data and found that downhill marathons definitely result in improved times.
Now, BAA has weighed in: “Working with data scientists and reviewing applicable results data from 2022 through the present, the B.A.A. has analzyed studies and findings which show that athletes qualifying at courses with at least 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) of net-elevation drop between start and finish receive a substantial time advantage over qualifiers from events with less than 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) net-elevation drop.”
So what are they doing about it – and which races will be impacted?
What Is the BAA’s Downhill Results Index?
The term “downhill race” is broad, and there is a broad range of races with a net drop in elevation.
Net drop is typically calculated as meters per kilometer. At the more moderate end, you have races like Boston or CIM – which have less than 5 m/km of net drop. They have a slight downhill component, but they’re not crazy. At the extreme end, you have races like REVEL Big Cottonwood – which has a net drop of 37.82 m/km. That’s over 5,000 feet throughout the entire race.
The BAA’s new rules apply to races with a total drop of 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) – which is equivalent to a 10.84 m/km net drop. Any downhill race with less elevation change than that is unaffected.
For races with more elevation than that, the BAA is applying an adjustment to a runner’s time. This adjustment – which they call an “index” – is meant to account for the difference in time resulting from the net decline.
Based on the net decline of a race, the following adjustments apply:
- 1,500 to 2,999 ft (10.84 to 21.66 m/km): 5:00 adjustment
- 3,000 to 5,999 ft (21.66 to 43.33 m/km): 10:00 adjustment
- 6,000 ft or more (43.33 m/km or more): Ineligible for BQ
Note that the BAA’s announcement primarily identified these thresholds by feet. I’ve converted them to m/km because that’s the unit used by USATF in its course certifications.
Which Races Are Subject to the New Adjustment?
If you haven’t closely looked at the data before, you may not have any context for understanding what this means. Again, the term downhill marathon can be used to describe a lot of races – but not all races fit in the specific criteria laid out by the BAA.
You might assume that this affects more races than it does.
For races in the United States, official course certifications and information about net drop can be found in USATF’s course database. Based on that official information, here are the races that are subject to the new downhill penalty.
Note that there are a handful of other small races, with fewer than 200 finishers, which I haven’t included in these lists.
First up, here’s the list of races subject to the 5:00 penalty. They have between 1,500 and 2,999 feet of net drop. The table also shows the number of finishers at the race from 2024 to 2025.
This list includes a couple of large races (St. George and Las Vegas), some medium races (Utah Valley and Tucson), and some smaller races. The table is ordered by the amount of drop – so Cascade Express and Super Marathon are just over the threshold, while St. George is much closer to the threshold for the next tier.
Next up, here’s the list of races subject to a 10:00 adjustment.
The list is much smaller. There are half as many races here, and it’ll be shorter in the future – REVEL Rockies was officially retired after 2024.
The two largest remaining races are both from the REVEL series (Mt. Charleston and Big Cottonwood). They’re also the most egregiously downhill.
The remaining three races are much smaller. Again, there are a handful of races with fewer than 200 finishers. I don’t usually track those results for the Boston Marathon Cutoff Time Tracker, so I’ve left them off of this list.
Finally, there are no major races with a net drop in excess of 6,000 feet. I heard that there was a race with this much elevation loss in Spain, but it looks like that race is now defunct. I can say for certain that there are no certified races in the USATF course database with this much elevation loss.
Which Downhill Races Are Not Subject to a Penalty?
Those are all of the downhill races subject to the new penalty and time adjustment. But there are other downhill races which are below the 1,500 foot threshold.
The table below includes the races with 5 m/km or more of net drop – about 700 feet.
Most of these races are a moderate size – with 1,000 to 2,000 finishers. Mesa is the largest, followed by Mountains 2 Beach.
Beyond this, there are another dozen or so races with more moderate declines. Boston and CIM fit into this category. Although they have a reputation for being downhill, they’re just slightly downhill – and they’re far more flat than the rest of the races on this list.
There are a couple of downhill races in Canada, as well. The most well known (and steep) of these is Marathon P’tit Train du Nord. But at 5.2 m/km of net drop, it’s unaffected by the new rules. Mississauga Marathon is also net downhill, but it’s even flatter (1.90 m/km).
I can’t say definitively, but I’m not aware of any other international races with a significant net drop that would be impacted. World Athletics and AIMS rules prohibit courses with a net drop in excess of 1 m/km, and most of the other major marathons around the world follow those rules. The net downhill race seems to be mostly an American phenomena.
What Does This Mean for the Cutoff Time in the Future?
The big question now: how much impact will this have on the qualifying process moving forward?
I’m working on a full analysis of that question, which should be done by the end of this week. It’ll be published in Runner’s Life on Medium.
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But in the meantime, here’s one piece of data to think about.
Although these races are front of mind and always seem to pop up in the conversation – they represent a tiny fraction of all marathon finishers.
In a previous analysis of the 2025 Boston Marathon qualifying period, less than 20,000 finishers ran a steep downhill marathon. That category coincides with the 1,500+ foot threshold implemented by BAA.
Now it is true that a larger than average number of those finishers will qualify for Boston, and a larger than average number of those qualifiers will apply. But downhill qualifiers still represent a small part of the Boston field, and a significant number of those qualifiers could qualify at a flat race – and could probably still qualify with the 5:00 or 10:00 penalty.
So while this change will have meaningful consequences for some runners right at the cusp, you shouldn’t assume it’ll necessarily have a huge impact on the cutoff in the future.
Stay tuned for a more thorough analysis.