By Tiffany Williams –
BOSTON — The Boston Marathon has long sold itself as the ultimate proving ground for distance runners. Run fast enough, earn your qualifying time, and you’ve punched your ticket to Hopkinton.
Not anymore.
For the first time in the race’s storied history, earning a Boston Marathon qualifying time may no longer be enough by itself to guarantee entry.
The Boston Athletic Association announced a significant overhaul to the registration process for the 131st Boston Marathon presented by Bank of America, introducing a new random selection component that will give approximately 1,000 qualified runners another chance to earn a coveted bib after the traditional acceptance process is complete.
The change reflects a growing reality facing one of the world’s most prestigious marathons.
More runners than ever are achieving qualifying standards.
More runners than ever are running faster than those standards.
And even qualifying has become increasingly insufficient.
Registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon will take place over five days, from Sept. 14 through Sept. 18, 2026.
As in recent years, registration will not operate on a first-come, first-served basis.
Instead, every applicant who has achieved a qualifying time for their respective age group and gender can apply during registration week through the B.A.A.’s online Athletes’ Village platform.
Once registration closes, officials will verify every qualifying performance and rank athletes according to how far they exceeded their qualifying standard.
Those performances will determine the event’s official cut-off time, with the fastest qualifiers earning entry until the field reaches capacity.
That’s where the biggest change arrives.
Beginning with the 2027 race, runners whose qualifying performances are not faster than the final cut-off won’t simply receive rejection notices.
Instead, they will automatically become eligible for a new Boston Qualifier Selection, a random drawing expected to award approximately 1,000 additional entries.
It’s a dramatic acknowledgment that Boston’s qualifying system has become a victim of its own success.
Running a Boston qualifier remains extraordinarily difficult.
Actually getting into the race has become even harder.
“The Boston Marathon annually welcomes the highest performing athletes, and we are internationally known for our qualifying standards,” said Jack Fleming, President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association. “With the increasingly fast times in our sport, our random Boston Qualifier Selection gives all those who have met the standard for their age group a chance to run Boston.”
The lottery is not open to everyone.
Only runners who successfully achieved an official Boston qualifying standard but fell short of the final cut-off time will be included.
Even then, selection is far from guaranteed.
The B.A.A. acknowledged that acceptance odds will ultimately depend on how many qualified runners apply during September’s registration period and noted that field-size limitations are expected to prevent every qualified applicant from gaining entry.
The announcement underscores just how dramatically marathon running has evolved.
Qualifying standards once represented the finish line.
Now, for many runners, they’re simply the starting point.
The Boston Athletic Association also announced another significant adjustment that could reshape future qualifying races.
For the first time, registration for the 2027 race will include time index adjustments for qualifying performances recorded on courses featuring a net elevation drop greater than 1,500 feet, or 457.2 meters.
The move reflects the organization’s continued effort to evaluate qualifying performances across courses with substantially different profiles.
Looking ahead, the qualifying window for the 2028 Boston Marathon will open immediately after registration for the 2027 race closes.
Beginning Sept. 19, 2026, runners can start posting qualifying times for the 2028 event.
The qualifying standards themselves will remain unchanged for 2028, although the B.A.A. said downhill course time indexes remain subject to future review before registration opens the following year.
For decades, the Boston Marathon has been defined by one simple question: “Did you qualify?”
Now there may be a second one.
“Did you get in?”
It’s a remarkable shift for the world’s oldest annual marathon, one that reflects both the race’s enduring prestige and the unprecedented depth of today’s distance-running talent.
Qualifying still matters.
It just doesn’t guarantee what it once did.