The Tableau dashboard below collects data from marathons, tracks the number of finishers who meet their Boston qualifying time, and projects an estimated cutoff time for the 2027 Boston Marathon. I haven’t included the actual projection yet, but that piece of the tracker will go live in late November once there’s enough data to sufficiently … Read more
In early 2028, several hundred of the best runners in the United States will compete in the US Olympic Team Trials Marathon. Meeting this OTQ standard is a lofty goal – one that only the most talented and committed runners can strive for. In recent years, it has also become more difficult to achieve. After … Read more
Lately, I’ve been tracking which marathons are selling out and how early they’ve reached capacity. Last week, another race joined that list in record time. The 2026 Grandma’s Marathon sold out in less than twenty four hours. Over the summer, I noted that the race had been selling out more quickly in each of the … Read more
Lately, I’ve been tracking which marathons are selling out and how early they’ve reached capacity. Last week, another race joined that list: the 2025 Eversource Hartford Marathon. Like many races, the Hartford Marathon peaked over a decade ago. But after declining for a few years before COVID, it’s definitely on the rebound. The field is … Read more
The BAA made two changes to registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon. The more subtle change involved the start of the qualifying period and eliminating the ability to use a small subset of races to qualify for two different Boston Marathons. The big news was the new rules for downhill marathons. For years now, (some) … Read more
The BAA announced two changes for registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon. The big headline was the downhill results index. The subtler change was the beginning of the qualifying period for the 2027 Boston Marathon – and the elimination of the double dipping period. For the last several years, the start of the next qualifying … Read more
Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. The Boston Athletic Association announced the cutoff time for the 2026 Boston Marathon: 4:34. If you made it in, congrats! The outcome was slightly lower than I predicted, so I’m sure there are some happy and relieved runners out there who made it through by a hair. … Read more
Lately, I’ve been tracking which marathons are selling out and how early they’re reaching capacity. This week, another race joined that list: the 2025 St. Jude Memphis Marathon. At the beginning of the month, race organizers noted that the race was at 95% capacity. This week, it officially sold out. This was after selling out … Read more
This morning, BAA announced the cutoff for the 2026 Boston Marathon: 4:34. Read a preliminary analysis of the data they released here. This morning, the Boston Athletic Association released the number of qualified applicants for the 2026 Boston Marathon: 33,267. Which begs the immediate question – what does this mean for the cutoff time? Throughout … Read more
The BAA released the number of applicants for the 2026 Boston Marathon: 33,267. Here’s a revised prediction that takes this new data into account. This evening, the registration period for the 2026 Boston Marathon comes to a close. After tracking data to project the likely cutoff time throughout the year, I published my final prediction … Read more