Boston Finish Times

Let’s be real. Trump could have broken 4 out there on Monday.

damn that sucks about working in marathon day but 4:30 should still give you decent time to catch some finishers. The cutoff is usually around 6 hours so last people cross maybe 2:30-3pm ish but there's always stragglers and walkers who take longer. BAA is pretty chill about letting people finish even if they're past cutoff
you might miss the very last ones but should definitely catch plenty of back of pack runners who need those cheers the most. they're usually the most fun to watch anyway since they're not taking it super seriously and actually interact with crowd

Lol my all-time marathon PR is from Boston 2018 (when only 7% of the field was sub-3). What could I have run on Monday?

You would have run AT LEAST 5 minutes faster compared to 2018. Tough to say what the delta would be exactly, but that's conservative.

For comparison runners were 5-6 minutes slower in 2024 when it was warm and humid but not nightmare weather.

Are you the poster formerly known as “Angry Johnny”?

My 5th and fastest Boston. As a mid-70's runner I'm supposed to be loosing X% every year but I've been faster every year - and this year was the best. I can honestly say a huge part of that was attributed to AI planning. I used ChatGPT Plus, put in my age, weight, height, foot size (actual foot dimensions), BF% and desired finish time. It selected a 3-pair rotation of shoes (and socks) and gave a fairly detailed (although condensed) training plan using that 3-pair rotation of shoes. It also mapped out the Boston Marathon route into about 6 segments - giving me pace and distance at each segment. I finished 1 minute past my desired finish - qualifying for next year.

runnER/DR,

What about the backend of the field and what it does to overall finish times? At the expo I noticed lots of noisemakers and applause when first time marathoners picked up their bibs. Since 1985 the BAA has shifted its position from a purely amateur race, to professionalism and high-performance runners, to recreational folks increasing the numbers, and now embracing the charity runner crowd.

Keep in mind the actual cut-off time for qualifying this year was just about 3 minutes faster than last year, making it the fastest cut-off time in the modern era. So the overall field was marginally deeper in addition to the perfect weather.