A couple of weeks ago, a new study was released that analyzed pacing data from the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Boston Marathons. The title, “Pacing strategy patterns and performance outcomes in marathon runners,” is interesting. But when you dig into the methodology, I’m not sure they actually measured and analyzed what they expected to examine. … Read more
This week, the Boston Athletic Association made a big announcement about registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon: there would be a new lottery for runners who met their qualifying time but missed the cutoff time. They also announced the dates for registration: September 14 to September 18. This means that the weekend of September 12-13 … Read more
Feature image from Governor Healy on Flickr. This week, the Boston Athletic Association released the entry list for the 2026 Boston Marathon. Athletes can log into Athletes’ Village to see their corral assignment, but that isn’t publicly available. The only information in the searchable entry list is a runner’s name, age, city, state, country of … Read more
For the latest on the possible outcomes for the cutoff time, check out the May Update on the 2027 Boston Cutoff. There are relatively few results remaining, so the projection won’t change much. But two key factors point to the actual cutoff being at least slightly higher than the final projection. The Tableau dashboard below … 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
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
The BAA has announced the number of applicants for the 2026 Boston Marathon: 33,267. That’s slightly lower than expected, suggesting that the cutoff will also be slightly lower than prediction. Here’s a revised prediction that takes these numbers into account. It’s finally here: registration week for the Boston Marathon. For the better part of the … Read more