2024 Boston marathon times are set at 5:29 faster than qualifying times

made it by 13 secs.

11,000 people denied. 1/3 applicants. Slow people go home devastated.

That's a lot of Revel racers who ended up disappointed.

So glad to see that the BAA and/or BOA didn't succumb to the 'cutoff-crybabies'.

Revel's going to have to start a Pikes Peak race next year to keep up

There're gonna be some upset people that they only put 22K in, with many thinking that number would be more like 24K.

Here's a random observation from the press release: "287 athletes residing in Hopkinton are entered in this year’s race"

That seems highly unlikely for a town that size. So why would someone claim to reside there when they don't?

There will alot of hotel rooms in Downtown Boston being available after today.

Perhaps people who grew up in Hopkinton who live elsewhere as adults put that as their town because of hometown pride. The town has 19k people and I highly doubt 287 of those residents BQ'd and happen to be running this year, but I also bet the town over-indexes on both runners and Boston participants because the marathon starts there.

It is the smallest number of qualified runners in at least the last six years (excluding the 2021 pandemic year) by a lot.

2023: 23,257

2022: 22,936

2021: (pandemic race) 14,609

2020: 24,127

2019: 23,074

2018: 23,198

So, this year with a normal total field size (30,000), they took over 1,000 fewer qualified runners than they have in any of the last six years (excluding 2021 which had a much smaller total field). It would be reasonable to speculate that the new sponsor has something to do with this.

I made it in, so I’m not personally harmed by this. But I don’t like the move toward taking fewer qualified runners.

That's crazy, that's almost a quarter of all Mass entrants for a town of 16,000. The marathon aside, it's not a mecca for competitive runners the way the far larger cities of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Newton are.

I know they give out bibs to the towns along the route just to keep them happy but didn't realize it was this many.

The 'going home devastated' bunch really should have known better. You really don't have to be an actuary to ballpark these cutoff numbers. Lets say you assumed 5 min. At a very minimum you train to run your qualifier at your BQ less 10 min. These people going in thinking you just need to squeak in under your BQ are only doing enough to get buy.

The old adage: If you only do enough to get by, you'll only make enough to get by; except at the BM - you get gone.

When have they ever done this?

Same thought. I'm in, but I feel like if they'd engineered it so that anyone 5:00+ got in the optics would be improved. That way they could set the stage for new cutoffs as well.

They expended the para field. There was a lot of talk about how the charity field the past couple of weeks. Historically its been around 8% of the field. This year I think it is 10%

A lot of people will be devastated. I think nearly everyone I know had qualified by less than 2 minutes.

That is only people who are faster and have the luxury of being able to run 5 minutes faster with more training. Most people I know barely got to where they're as it is with a lot of training.

I cant wait for the serious runner video on this