I knew that the Boston Marathon was going to close early this year. In fact, I expected it to close between Christmas and the New Year and no longer allow entrants in the same year as the race for the first time in race history.
I was only partially right, however. Registration for the marathon closed yesterday, November 13th. It is the first time I have ever seen it close earlier than late January.
So, if you are registered for the race, congratulations! If you delayed registering, then what race are you going to run?
(More Info: Press Release)
I’m glad I was able to use my BQ from last year to register early. What a bummer for those hoping to qualify in a fall race.
I got my BQ last year in Philadelphia and still had enough time to register for the 2009 race. It would have been really disappointing to have to wait 17 months to run in Boston after working so hard and finally qualifying.
I expect the 2011 race to fill up during the first week next year. Eventually they are going to be forced to make some changes. Something similar to what New York does may work the best. That is, the top times can register and everyone else can only register via a lottery. The current BQ standards would still apply. To me that would be a better way to go than to increase the field size or lower the BQ standards.
I have not registered for the BM because I was trying to qualify for my 25th consecutitive BM? I ran Oct. 3 in St.George, Utah, but ran 4:35. I needed a 4:30 to qualify. I am planning to run Tucson, AZ on Dec. 13th. Please let me know if I will still get in for April 2010 if I qualify? Will you allow me to run unqualified if I don’t. I have looked forward to this run all year and see the news is out that you are now closed. Please let me know. I have been running over 30 years and have encouraged many to run for life. Nona Cerveny
I was wondering if peope were aloud to run teh Marathon as fun runners. My buddy and I are part of teh US Army and have not had a chance to run a marathon yet to quailify. But we both have always wanted to run the Boston Marathon, and are wondering if we could run teh April 2010 marathon as fun runners or unregistered runners? Thank you.
Interesting alternative:
http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=18335
I just ran 2 marathons in a qualifying time. I’m 66 years old, and in Feb 14th I ran Seville, Spain in 4:09, and in Feb 21st ran Valencia, Spain in 4:02:22. I just found out Boston registrations are closed for 2010.
Would any of these two marathons serve me for 2011?
Thanks,
Francisco,
You should be okay. The qualifying times for Boston are usually good for about a year and a half; for 2010, you only needed to run your BQ after September 27, 2008.
My guess is that the cut-off date for 2011 will be September 26, 2009, so any race after that day should qualify. I may be off as much as a week, but it will be right around then, and your February 2010 races will definitely count.
Congratulations!
If i ran a 3.05 marathon in May 2010, can i run boston is 2012?
No, that’s not going to help for the 2012 race. Generally speaking, you have about 18 months from race day that your qualification is good for, so for the 2012 race you’ll need to qualify after mid/late September of 2010, and your race will have been too early. They haven’t announced the actual date yet (since the 2011 race hasn’t even happened yet) but you can be reasonably sure that at a minimum you’ll have to have run a qualifying time in late 2010 or 2011 to get in.
They also haven’t announced new qualifying standards yet, although they’ve hinted that there will be some. My guess is that a 3:05 will still probably get you into the race but until new standards are announced (or that the current standards will stay in place another year) I can’t say whether that would be fast enough to get in anyway.
I will say that your 3:05 last May is fast enough to get you into the Ganssett Marathon, which takes place 2 days before Boston a few hours south of there in Naragansset, Rhode Island.
You can get the details about that race here:
http://www.gansettmarathon.com/