In November, I launched the Boston Marathon Cutoff Time Tracker to project the expected cutoff for the 2026 Boston Marathon. Since then, I’ve made regularly updates to incorporate additional race results as they become available. For those of you that are interested in making your own prediction and who are technically savvy, I’ve cleaned up … Read more
John Korir has had one hell of a year. He won the 2024 Chicago Marathon, and then he turned around and won the 2025 Boston Marathon. For someone who previously won LA in 2:09-2:12, ran Boston in 2:10, and ran Chicago in 2:05, it’s a big come up. From 2021-23, he was good. But in … Read more
Feature image by Martineric from Lille, France., CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Like Boston, London, and Chicago, the New York City Marathon offers a method of guaranteed entry for faster runners. While the other three races have recently tightened their standards, NYRR has not followed suit. At least, not yet. I’ve been working on … Read more
Feature photo courtesy of erp3d on reddit A question I frequently get asked is, “How accurate was the Boston Marathon Cutoff Time Tracker in the past?” It’s impossible to answer that question directly, because the tracker itself is new this year. This is the first time that I’ve collected the results and made a continuing … Read more
My last major update on the Boston Marathon cutoff time projection came at the end of March. The projection was 5:20, and things had been moderating slightly for several weeks. But as I said then, April could prove to be an impactful month, with results from both Boston and London, along with many other races. And April did … Read more
Feature image by dorestbays on Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0 Last month, I published an analysis of the impact of downhill marathons on the Boston Marathon qualifying process. As a reminder, here are a few of the conclusions I came to: That analysis was published before the 2025 Boston Marathon. I used the entry list … Read more
The London Marathon was about two weeks ago. It’s the last of the Majors for the spring – following the Tokyo and Boston Marathons. Those two races each saw a significant number of new Six Star Finishers. How many new finishers are there after London? As I did after Boston, I collected the raw data … Read more
Feature image by 4300streetcar on Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 4.0 We all know elite marathon runners run a lot. But exactly how many miles and hours do they put in during a typical week? The accepted wisdom is that the elites put in 100+ miles per week. Some have released training plans over the … Read more
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for the Boston Marathon cutoff time. At the end of March, the projected cutoff time was around 5:20. Although the trend towards larger fields had continued – the number of qualifiers was still dropping slightly, moderating the cutoff time projection. Then along came Boston. Although I anticipated there … Read more
Last Monday was the Boston Marathon, and it was an exciting one. There were a record number of applicants for this year’s race, and there was incredible demand to be there on race day. After a miserable year last year, when the heat decimated the field, runners had near-perfect weather. The elites finished in blazing … Read more