Huge Boston News!

Boston Athletic Association (BAA) made several huge (for the marathoning community) announcements earlier today. See them at https://www.baa.org/2026-and-2027-registration-updates-boston-marathon-presented-bank-america

1) No more "double-dip" races! 

For years, registration for the Boston Marathon took place over the course of two weeks, because they had successive waves of registration that would open for people with times progressively closer to their Boston Qualifying (BQ) standard. So, during that timeframe, people were still permitted to run a qualifying race. But given the varying dates of the races where people were getting those BQs, there was no reasonable way to cut off which could be used or not. So, there were always two weeks where a race could be used not only for the immediate registration period, but for the following year's registration, too. Some races surely put themselves on specific dates to maximize the number of times they could be used as double-dip qualifiers.

For the last several years, however, BAA has changed their registration method so that everyone applies during a single week. (Most have their times pre-verified, but that's not required.) BAA then slowly but steadily works their way through from the fastest qualifiers to those right on the standard, cutting registration off after a set number of slots are filled. Yet, they kept the two week double-dip window.

Today's announcement, effective starting with registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon, changes the window to establish a more set pattern:

• Registration starts on Monday after the 1st Sunday in September and goes until that Friday.
• Qualifying period starts Saturday after the 1st Sunday in September, and goes through the 1st Sunday in September the following year.

2) Time adjustment for certain "net downhill" races.

Lots of people seek out races where the finish line is at a considerably lower altitude than the starting line (net downhill) since, generally speaking, running downhill is easier and faster than flat and certainly than uphill. Count me among their number preferring downhill races. Hell, my personal record -- and only sub-3 marathon -- was set on just such a course, in Mesa, AZ which features 866 feet net loss. The vast majority of that net loss is during the first half of the race (with a single long uphill stretch in the middle of that). Boston's net loss is 460 feet (despite having a total of 1250 feet of loss across the whole course).

Starting with registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon (at least for two years), BAA will make time adjustments for certain net downhill races to try to level out the playing field a bit:

• Those who have verified qualifying times on courses with 1500-2999 feet net downhill will have an extra 5 minutes added to their submitted times.
• Those on courses with 3000-6000 feet net downhill will have an extra 10 minutes tacked on.
• Those on courses with more than 6000 feet net downhill will be ineligible.

IMO, the most important part of this new time adjustment policy (which people haven't been focusing on yet) is the fact that if the time adjusted result lands a runner above the BQ time, they will be ineligible to register using that result. (As opposed to allowing all of the BQs the register, then doing the adjustment and filling slots, with the possibility that some people with adjusted times above the standard could still get in.)