Boston Marathon Elite Men’s start, taken from B.A.A. 129th Boston Marathon Results Book.

At the end of my last update on April 27, was the line:

Given the likely trend in 2026 cutoff time, I am anticipating keen interest in the upcoming downhills.

So true. But not quite the way I was expecting.

On June 16 the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) announced a change that applies to applicants who use downhill qualifiers in their application to the Boston Marathon. Finish times from those races will be adjusted (‘indexed’) by an amount that depends on the net elevation drop of the course.

Qualifying times from courses having a net elevation drop of between 1,500 to 2,999 feet will be adjusted by five minutes. The adjustment will be ten minutes for races with a net elevation drop of between 3,000 and 5,999 feet. Courses with net elevation drops of 6,000 feet or greater will not be usable as Boston Marathon qualifiers.

The B.A.A.’s rationale for the change is to ensure that athletes running downhill qualifiers don’t gain an advantage over their fellow athletes.

This change will go into effect for the 2027 Boston Marathon. (Thus it is irrelevant for the 2026 race.) It will be in place for at least two years. The B.A.A. reserves the right to make additional adjustments in the future as they deem necessary.

Runners have been clamoring for the B.A.A. to do something about these downhill races for years now. This should appease them somewhat. But from my analysis, it will have minimal impact to future cutoff times. More on that later.

In that same press release, the B.A.A. set the registration period for the 2026 race to be from September 8 to September 12, 2025. For 2027, the qualifying period will begin on September 13, 2025. That is, unlike in previous years, there is no overlap between successive qualifying periods. The “double-dip” period wherein a single race could serve as a qualifier for two successive Boston Marathons, has been eliminated.

My BIB50 races include two downhills (REVEL Cottonwood and Tunnel Lite) that have been double dippers in the past. This time around only the 2024 running of these events can be included in my cutoff time projection.

Here are the final data for the BIB50 qualifiers comparing the 2026 Boston Marathon qualifying period to the 2025 qualifying period.

BIB50 Finisher and BQ data for 2024 and 2025 Boston Marathon Qualification Periods.

Let’s review the trends that I have highlighted in previous updates.

1. The interest in marathon running continues to soar.

The number of finishers to date of the BIB50 qualifiers this qualifying period rose to 438,751, an increase of 10.45% over the 397,244 BIB50 finishers during the qualifying period for the 2025 race.

2. The increase in marathon finishers was very nearly outpacing the effect of the tightening of the 2026 Boston Marathon qualification standards.

Refer to the numbers highlighted in yellow in the chart above.

The number of BQ’s in a qualifying period drives the number of applicants to the marathon which drives the cutoff time.

Using the old standards relevant to the 2025 qualifying period, there were 62,466 BQ’s from the BIB50 qualifiers for the 2025 Boston Marathon.

Now, with the tightened standards for the 2026 Boston Marathon, there are 58,875 BQ’s from the BIB50 qualifiers for the 2026 event.

As I have pointed out in my previous analyses, one might expect that the standards change would result in a drastic decrease in the number of BQ’s this time around. But in part due to the 10.45% increase in finishers, the number of BQ’s is down by only 5.75%.

Hence, the cutoff time for the 2026 race, though it will be lower than in 2025, will still be disappointing for any runner with a small cushion with respect to their qualifying standard.

3. For any given qualifier, race day weather is enormously influential.

The top four qualifiers for the 2025 Boston Marathon were Chicago, Boston, London, and Berlin. Each one of them had significantly different weather this time around and that was reflected in the number of BQ’s.

Chicago and London were hotter than the previous qualification period resulting in 5,166 fewer BQ’s. On the other hand, Berlin and Boston had much more favorable (i.e. cooler) running weather than the previous races. This resulted in 4,219 more qualified runners. Combine the results of these four majors and we have 947 fewer BQ’s this qualification period.

For fun let’s also consider New York City, also a major. The weather was brilliant at the 2024 race, much cooler than in 2023. The result was 476 more BQ’s.

Hence, the year-over-year net effect of these big hitters for Boston Marathon applications is a paltry decrease of 471 BQ’s, less than one percent of the total BIB50 BQ’s from last year.

The weather giveth and the weather taketh away.

I am predicting 34,301 qualified applicants for the 2026 Boston Marathon. This is a large number but well below the record number of applicants (36,393) last year.

I am going to assume that the B.A.A. will accept the same number of applicants in 2026 that were accepted in 2025. That number is 24,069. Using the same algorithm as I used in my earlier updates, my cutoff time estimate for 2026 becomes 5:41(5 minutes 41 seconds.) By comparison the cutoff time for the 2025 race was 6:51, a difference of 70 seconds.

The number of applicants that the B.A.A. will accept is a huge wildcard. Remember that for the 2024 Boston Marathon they accepted only 22,019 runners. The difference of 2,050 accepted runners translates to a cutoff time difference of 69 seconds. If the number of acceptances were to go that low then my cutoff estimate rises to 6:50 which is within a second of the 2025 cutoff time.

Would the B.A.A. tighten the standards only to also reduce the number of accepted applicants and thereby negate any decrease in the cutoff time?

Somehow, I doubt that they would jerk us around like that. I believe that the number will be closer to that of the 2025 race. But I can’t be certain of that. We will soon see.

As for the new downhill indexing policy.

The BIB50 qualifiers include 8 races that will be impacted by the new policy. One of them, REVEL Big Bear, was canceled during the 2026 qualification period due to a snow storm. The remaining downhills yielded 2,229 BQ’s that were included in my above analysis.

When the new downhill indexing policy is put into place it will effectivly decrease the BQ% of these downhill qualifiers. Applying that policy to the 2026 qualifying period decreases the number of BQ’s from the BIB50 downhills by 43.2% to 1,266.

This is not a big effect. By my analysis, if the policy were in place for the 2026 race, the cutoff time would be 5:23.

The drop of 18 seconds in cutoff time is, of course, delightful for those additional runners now accepted into Boston. But it is not large enough to have a meaningful impact on the training and qualification strategy of any runner who is fretting over their ability to achieve the BQ standard.

Personally, I think this is a wise strategy on the part of the B.A.A. They have made a legitimate attempt to placate the athletes calling for action against runners who exploit the downhill marathon advantage. At the same time, when the numbers come out for the 2027 race, they will demonstrate that the vitriol against downhill qualifiers is a bit over-stated.

Let’s keep in mind what this is all about. We are talking about the most basic microeconomic principles: demand for Boston Marathon bibs vastly exceeds the supply. The supply is not likely to ever change. Short of another catastrophe like the pandemic, demand will always go up.

Think of the downhill qualifiers as an attempt by entrepreneurs to address the market opportunity created by the imbalance in supply and demand. Hinder that opportunity by placing a “tax” on the downhills and the market will adapt. Somehow.

Many of the races that are in the 1,500 to 2,999 feet elevation drop window will most likely modify their courses to slip under the 1,500 feet level to avoid the 5:00 index penalty. The REVELS with their 5,000+ foot elevation drops are going to have a hard time avoiding the penalty.

But other entrepreneurs will step in. As I have pointed out before, race day weather is a huge influence on runners’ performance. It is far more significant than elevation drop. I fully expect that qualifiers will come on line touting near-ideal weather conditions, either natural or man-made.

The California International Marathon (CIM) already has a head start. Northern California weather in early December has been consistently near optimal for marathoning. And CIM is a net downhill that won’t get indexed because its net elevation drop is only 366 feet.

But would Boston hopefuls pay big bucks to enter a race that boasts Qatar-like course refrigeration or plentiful cooling misters or air conditioning intended to increase the odds of a PR or BQ?

Yes, some would.

What about super-cooling suits (think: Dune) that runners could wear to keep their core temperature under control?

That technology is already in the works.

Will there be an outcry about runners taking advantage of such strategies?

Oh, absolutely.

Will the B.A.A. step in if the whining gets deafening?

Probably. Eventually. We have precedence. The B.A.A. has now unleashed a new normal of vigilance. It is no longer just performance enhancing drugs that raise an eyebrow.

Then again, there is a brave new world of Climate Change headed our way. Maybe the demand for Boston Marathon bibs will decrease when Boylston Street is under water.

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