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 2026 Boston Marathon. It will be updated regularly throughout the year, through the registration period in September 2025. For more details on the data, the assumptions, and other … Read more
This year, there were a record number of qualifiers who applied to run the Boston Marathon. That led to a steep cutoff time of 6:51 for the 2025 race and new qualifying times for the 2026 race and beyond. A lot of people, myself included, hoped that would bring the cutoff time for future races … Read more
Last month, I posted a lengthy analysis of the Chicago Marathon results. Part of that analysis was whether runners managed a negative split or not. Subsequently, I’ve done some more thinking about this issue. After some discussions around the data, I came up with a different way to think about the problem. Instead of looking … Read more
Many runners have strong opinions about Boston’s qualifying times and their selection process. People will inevitably complain that it’s unfair for one group or another. I recently saw a post in a Facebook group suggesting that the process was unfair for women – and that the new qualifying times would make things more unfair. This … Read more
This week, the Boston Athletic Association officially announced the cutoff time for the 2025 Boston Marathon: 6:51. As they have done in the past, they included with this announcement a collection of data and statistics that tell some of the story of the applicant pool and the field of qualifiers. Absent a full release of … Read more
Friday, the registration period for the 2025 Boston Marathon came to a close. Along with many others, I was eagerly waiting to see if they would release the number of qualified applicants. They didn’t. By the end of the weekend, I was beginning to think they might withhold that information until they announce the actual … Read more
Registration for the 2025 Boston Marathon is drawing to a close, and over the past week I’ve seen a lot of the same questions come up over and over again. It will still be another week or two before acceptances and rejections go out, and it’s likely these same questions will continue to circulate. So … Read more
After a record number of qualified applicants applied to run the Boston Marathon in 2024, there has been plenty of talk about what will happen in 2025. I made a prediction about the cut-off time here (7:03), and I added some additional data and context here. With the registration period under way, runners are eager … Read more
Update: Now that BAA has released the number of applicants, I’ve published a brief follow up here. Last week, I shared a prediction for the 2025 Boston Marathon cut-off time – 7:03. If you haven’t read that article, you may want to read that first to get some context. Since then, I’ve gotten some feedback … Read more
Update: Once you’ve read this analysis, check out the follow up I published after BAA released the number of applicants. But the short version is that my confidence in this prediction has increased. If you are interested in running the Boston Marathon, then you know that you need to meet a qualifying time to get … Read more