I qualified for the 2012 Boston Marathon when I was 24 (2010) with a 2:56:50 (3:10 BQ, 1:14 cut-off)
I qualified for the 2020 Boston Marathon when I was 33 (2019) with a 2:58:13 (3:05 BQ, 1:39 cut-off)
I turn 40 next May (3:05 BQ), and it seems reasonable to assume the cut-off will be ~5:00.
As I get older, the entry times (essentially) stay the same.
Today is the day that the BAA has notified qualified applicants of their acceptance into the 130th Boston Marathon. The 2026 race will be on April 20th.
A total of 33,249 applications were submitted. 24,362 qualified applicants were accepted.
• For example, if you were a man in the 18-34 age group, the BQ is 2:55:00 and so to be accepted you needed to run 2:50.26 or faster. For women and non-binary athletes in the 18-34 age group, the BQ is 3:25:00 and so you needed to run 3:20:26 or faster.
⏰ To be accepted, athletes needed to run at least 4 minutes and 34 seconds faster than the qualifying standard for their age group and gender.
By the numbers on the qualifiers:
• 5,397 qualifiers were ≥ 20:00 under their standard
• 8,961 were between 10:00–19:59 under
• 10,004 were between 4:34–9:59 under
Of those accepted: 13,823 men | 10,429 women | 110 non-binary athletes
🔟 719 athletes accepted based on having completed 10 consecutive Boston Marathons
1️⃣ 10,710 runners will be running their first-ever Boston Marathon