So you thought you were good qualifying for Comrades or Two Oceans with a 3-hour, 45-minute marathon time. Well, just to shatter your illusions of grandeur, not only would you not qualify for the 2025 Boston Marathon if you were a male under 35, but you would be 45 minutes off the pace. Yes, you read that right, you need to run a sub-3 marathon time just to qualify for the Boston Marathon – a woman under 35 would need to run sub-3:30.
And even running these times does not guarantee you an entry.
The Boston Marathon qualifying times are incredibly difficult for your average runner to achieve. This should have had a negative impact on the race, but interestingly it has had just the opposite effect.
The Boston Marathon started in 1897 and as such is the world’s oldest annual marathon, and was always a big one – but in the 19th century a big marathon meant 60 or 70 runners. In the 1960s, entries really started growing and for the first time in 1969, the Boston Marathon reached over 1000 competitors.
According to runnersworld.com, the race couldn’t cope. The narrow route was cluttered and “frustrated runners lost precious race time shuffling to the start after the gun and lost more time waiting in long weary lines to be recorded at the finish.”
So, in 1971 the first Boston qualifying time of 3:30 was introduced with no allowance made for age. When women were first officially allowed in 1972, they also needed a sub-3:30 time, same as the men!
However qualifying times didn’t solve the problem because running was booming and Boston’s numbers, like most other races at the time, kept increasing. The new qualifying times did not act as a deterrent but instead actually boosted the race’s appeal.
“Rather than limiting the field … each time the Boston Athletics Association (BAA) lowered its time standard, it challenged more and more runners to meet those standards,” wrote Hal Higdon in Boston: A Century of Running. Adding to Boston’s traditional and historic charm, the race now also became exclusive and irresistible. The race’s restrictive qualifying times became an inspiration for wannabes to train harder.
Currently, even though you may achieve the qualifying criteria, it does not mean you automatically get an entry. For 2024, 36 393 runners qualified for the Boston Marathon, but the race’s limit was 30 000 so they took the top 30 000 qualifiers – heartbreaking for those athletes who ran sub 3 but missed the cut.
But there is another way for “plodders” to snag an entry. By raising funds for the official race charities, entrants can effectively “buy” themselves an entry. This has caused controversy amongst race qualifiers, especially those who are close to the qualifying cut off. But they have never won the argument. The athletes that run for charity earn their place in a different way by raising thousands of dollars with a strong emphasis on contributing to Boston-area causes. In 2024, those athletes raised 17.9 million dollars for charity.
So before you complain about having to run a sub 5 hour marathon for Comrades or Two Ocean’s qualifications, just be glad that it is an achievable time for the vast majority of athletes and you don’t need to be in the top 5% of runners to take part in these world class events.
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FinishTime administers the SportsSplits Tracker app in South Africa and it is used by events such as Comrades, Two Oceans and Dusi to offer their entrants and spectators an affordable and world-class tracking app.
Easily downloadable to your smart phone via the Apple and Google Play stores, the SportsSplits app has tracking of athletes for spectators and participants through predictive and live timing data. You can also receive live push notifications of your tracked athletes or the leaders as they pass milestones and timing points along the course, allowing you to quickly follow their progress.
Tracked athletes can either be viewed through an interactive 2D map, or the course can be brought to life with 3D mapping. The map can feature iconic landmarks on the course and promote points of interest such as aid stations, water points, key milestones and toilets.
The app is also a vehicle for event organisers to communicate with the athletes and spectators before and during the event – particularly helpful to broadcast changes in start times or traffic problems. Event messages can be sent as broadcasts that appear under messages in the app or can be delivered as push notifications. Messages can push important or urgent event information, include links or promote expo vendors.
Leaderboards can easily be setup and displayed on the app by any combination of gender, category, country, team or any other combination of an available dataset.
Finisher badges can be generated from the app once a participant completes the event. These show the athlete’s performance, including split times, and can be shared on social media or downloaded as an image.
The app can also be branded by the event and advertising spots give event organisers the ability to feature and promote their event partners and sponsors. The powerful analytics ensure optimal participant engagement to ensure future planning and sponsor reporting is met.
The SportSplits Tracker app is administered in South Africa by FinishTime, and supports hundreds of thousands of competitors for multiple sporting events worldwide.
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This year the event spans over three days, in a two-rider team format that will take you through Mauritius’ most scenic coastal tracks to dense woodlands, breathtaking slopes, beach crossings and traditional salt pans, as well as new areas to explore within private game farms.
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