Fall marathon season is right around the corner but registration for next year’s Boston Marathon officially opened on Monday.
The sign up period for the 129th running of the race — world’s oldest annual marathon — kicked off at 10 a.m. and will close on Friday at 5 p.m.
“While race day may still be ten months away, we’re eager to welcome runners from across the nation and around the world for the 129th running of the Boston Marathon presented by Bank of America,” Jack Fleming, president and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association, said in a press release.
The race will take place on April 21 — Patriots’ Day — and applicants had to have a qualifying time for their age and gender group, between September 1, 2023 and this Friday, September 13.
Organizers expect 30,000 participants to line up at the start in Hopkinton but due to the limited size of the race even if an applicant has met the standard to run, they might not make the cut. Achieving the standard only means that runners have been allowed a chance to apply.
“If the total amount of submissions surpasses the allotted field size for qualified athletes, then those who are the fastest among the pool of applicants in their age and gender group will be accepted,” the BAA noted on its website.
Scarcity of slots for the Boston Marathon are common and last year 33,058 applicants hoped to run the 2024 race, with an astonishing 11,000 rejections. There are not enough bibs to accommodate runners who met the qualifying standard and posting a time better than the standard is recommended.
Only the fastest runners in their age and gender group will be selected, so qualifying times five to eight minutes quicker than the posted standard will guaranteed a selection.
However, even for the fastest qualifiers, all 30,000 slots are not available since elite runners, sponsors and charity bibs will carve out about 7,000 guaranteed entries. This means, as it has many times in the past, that thousands of time qualifiers will not run the race in April.
For the 2025 race, the BAA expects over 35,000 applications and if accepted, runners can expect to pay a $250 entry fee.
After the application window closes on Friday, race organizers will inform runners at the end of the month if they are accepted.
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(Photo by Charles Krupa/Associated Press)
