Last year, we did a deep dive predicting the cutoff for the 2025 Boston Marathon. After the BAA announced the number of accepted time-qualified runners, our method was with 6 seconds of the actual cutoff.
This year, we're revisiting our model with an additional data point. With the recent announcement of 33,267 applicants for the 2026 race, our updated model predicts a buffer of 5 minutes and 16 seconds.
This time is based on an assumption: the BAA will allow 24,000 time-qualified runners.1 But what if the number was different? We've built a small interactive tool for you to explore the possibilities.
Estimate the Cutoff Time
Use the slider to select the number of time-qualified runners and see the predicted cutoff time.
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