Boston 2021 Date Selected - October 11th

I would not get my hopes up too much that it will be a live event.

Need the vaccine program to be much more efficient in getting the vaccine in people’s arms and need to convince many non vaccine folks to go along with the program.

Need to be certain that those who had vaccine cannot transmit it.

Need to be sure the vaccine will continue to work on new strains.

There's a lot of pressure building for travel and tourism to resume - there are a lot of jobs in the travel and hospitality business that are on the line. There's equally a ton of fear out there and large events put many people into apoplectic convulsions. I can see this happening but I can also see the local communities rising up in opposition. Registration would have to be no later than a few months from now so the BAA has its work cut out for itself to convince everybody that this can be done responsibly.

I suspect that this could be virtual again with a core number of vaccinated-only athletes. I just cannot see the field being even close to five figures. And that's a conundrum: a small event doesn't generate enough local revenue to make much of a difference and a large one is going to frighten off a lot of people - particularly as much of the planning and commitments has to be done now.

Time will tell of course but I doubt that my 17+ minute advantage will hold up well in a significantly reduced field.

Bruin Alum wrote:

If the race does goes as planned in October 2021, does anyone have an idea of when registration would be for April 2022? Would someone have to run a qualifier before October 2021?

My guess is they would do registration after 10/11. Berlin/London/Chicago all precede Boston. Tokyo is on 10/17. NYC is on 11/7. I could see them saying races up to 10/11 all the way up to 11/7 & beyond.

As far as who they let in, they're going to have the same PR problems with a lottery system. They have historically used times to set fields. People might not like it but I would guess they start with the fastest and build out versus a lottery system that leaves out 2:20M & 2:45F types.

VaporBoi wrote:However, something tells me if they have to reduce the field size they will institute some sort of lottery to at least part of the field with qualified times. Don't think it's great optics if they end up with a qualifying time of 15-20 minutes under.

Excellent point! That is the question on all of our minds. How does the BAA fill the reduced field? Is it strictly by fastest first? Do they also restrict hotspots or people who are not vaccinated?

At any rate, I'm running a marathon in 10 days hoping to improve on my current 16:52 under to improve my chances of being in that field.

All signs so far point to this being the hardest Boston to get into... ever. Feeling a bit bummed to run 4:30 under the standard and almost certainly miss the cutoff.

Race will only be a partial field. That's the current plan, along with a virtual component.

I LOL'ed when I got the email. No way is Boston happening, at least not how we know it. Possibly elite only and definitely not on the standard course.

Move it to Florida, and then maybe it can happen!

CertifiedEliteMastersHobbyJogger wrote:

Excellent point! That is the question on all of our minds. How does the BAA fill the reduced field? Is it strictly by fastest first? Do they also restrict hotspots or people who are not vaccinated?

I don't know how they can't do something with the age brackets and qualifying windows. I aged up to 35 but could be using a time from when I was 32 in 2018 (I actually would have aged up even for the original April date). The longer qualifying window was going to certainly make things worse but when you add all the people aging up it's going to be a nightmare even with a normal field size.

Frankly I think they should go back to people who qualifying for the 2020 race using the times and age brackets at that date and reduce the field from there. The 2022 race the one with the longer qualifying window since there were so many fewer races in 2020 and probably a lot of this year. Seems like proof of vaccination (or negative COVID-19 test if unable to be vaccinated) should be easily obtainable by October.

Participants being vaccinated or testing negative is only part of the equation. Ample medical staff need to be available. You can't COVID test or vaccinate all the spectators, and they are arguably in more danger than the runners because they crowd into one place and stay there without moving.

I wonder if it will go through Wellesley College? The scream tunnel was absolutely one of the top highlights of my running career.

AMrRichardFenner wrote:

asks "Does anyone give a sheeit about the Boston Marathon anymore?"

Much less so since they went woke and started virtue signaling.

Here's the worst case scenario: We're at about 1.2 million doses per day on a two-shot regimen. So even at our current, anemic rate of vaccination, that would be about 130 million full vaccinations between now and race day. With people already vaccinated, that's over half the adult population of the country, including all the priority groups most likely to require hospitalization. With hospitalization and death rates plummeting, there's going to be incredible pressure to get things "back to normal."

Of course, that's the worst case scenario. If the rate of vaccination picks up at all (as it should, based on current projections), anyone who is unvaccinated by October will be so by choice. It's easy to imagine large events being limited to vaccinated participants and volunteers.

If the vaccination rate picks up by an average of 50% (again, quite likely based on current PESSIMISTIC projections) then we will have herd immunity by October.

So, yeah, the race might not go off. Anything is possible. But there's no reason to think it won't.

Anyone considering running Chicago and Boston?

sub sub elite local hobby jogger wrote:

NErunnr wrote:

I give it a 10% chance that it actually starts on October 11. I give it a better chance if it is elite only around Boston Common.

With the strict COVID-19 guidance in Massachusetts this year, not sure you will see 30,000+ runners and nearly 1 million spectators through 8 cities and towns along the course.

It looks like qualifying is good through September 15, 2018. My thought is there will be a number of qualified individuals looking to run in a race that will most likely be limited.

I give it a 10% chance.

Doesn't Boston Common have a nice hill on the east end? That would be brutal doing that every lap. I will suggest laps around the Back Bay Fens.

They should do Harvard Stadium loops. Everyone will break 2:00 on their GPS watches.

Boston Burnout wrote:

AMrRichardFenner wrote:

asks "Does anyone give a sheeit about the Boston Marathon anymore?"

Much less so since they went woke and started virtue signaling.

Yeah Boston is so worried about offending people like you by taking common sense stances. C'mon they're bankrolled by John Hancock. Let's not get carried away with how woke they are.

Boston is Boston. The hype is still there, and always will be.

If it does happen there will not be a lot of non-COVID time before it. I wonder what qualifing will be like. Two year old times?

oldburgrunner wrote:

If it does happen there will not be a lot of non-COVID time before it. I wonder what qualifing will be like. Two year old times?

I'm absolutely riding that fall '18 marathon time. BQ - 24 min.... too bad it's not actually going to happen.

It is patently unfair that they are allowing *all* times from September 2018. It should be limited to those who made the cutoff for 2020 only for that cohort.

Otherwise, if you missed the cutoff for 2020 but you age up for 2021, you can age up and get extra time *that you don't deserve* because you ran that time THREE years ago instead of the traditional limit of 1.5 years. Dude, you couldn't qualify for 2020 and make the cutoff with that time, you don't get in. Period.

This is true, I think 2020 qualifiers should be allowed to use old times but everyone else should have to be limited to use times in the normal 2021 qualifying window.