For years the official start of registration for the Boston Marathon was the Wednesday after Labor Day. Yesterday the Boston Athletic Association announced that registration will now start on Monday, October 18, 2010, exactly six months before the Boston Marathon's April 18, 2011, race date.
Officials from the B.A.A. are trying to fix a problem that occurred last year when the race sold out in a record ten weeks on November 13, 2009. Many marathoners who ran fall races were unable to use their qualifying times for the 2010 race. In 2008, the race sold out in December.
The Boston Marathon is capped at 25,000 participants, and a portion of those are charity runners who don't qualify based on time.
The B.A.A. toyed with the idea of increasing the cap and changing the qualifying times to a stricter standard. Adding more runners, however, would cause problems for city officials, and require more advanced planning. In order to lower qualifying times, they felt like they would have to give runners more notice. The B.A.A. won't rule out either option for the 2012 race.
If you're running a late fall race like the Philadelphia Marathon in the hopes of earning a ticket to Boston, be sure to sign up immediately after the run if you qualify. With the new October registration start date, officials from the B.A.A. are expecting another early sell out.
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Comments
Everyone wants to run in Boston.
Thanks for the heads up.
I predict the Philly marathon will be too late. Registration will close within one week.
Woah its such an event now
I wonder if this will help w/the Philly marathoners! I might have to agree that it will fill up really quick and Philly won't even make it. I wonder if they would consider making it the end of the year for a registration date. 12.31?
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