THX TO news-record.comRunners from our area and more nationwide who achieved Boston Marathon qualifying times well into the fall had their excitement tempered a bit when they went online to register for the April 2010 race.
“Registration is closed for the 2010 Boston Marathon.”
That message hit home in November. That’s two months earlier than registration closed for the 2009 race. (Qualifying times from the fall will be good for registration for the 2011 race; will open in September 2010).
So are there more Boston qualifiers? More people running marathons? More people running, period? Yes, yes and yes. And what is Boston to do?
The short answers: Registration will continue to fill quickly each year, so get in early. And there's little likelihood that the field will be expanded.
Guy Morse, the executive director of the Boston Marathon, took a few minutes by phone today to answer questions about the Boston Marathon and about the surge in the popularity of running.
Registration for the 2010 race closed in November, more than five months before the race date. That caught some runners by surprise. What was the reason for that?
“We were predicting it would close early because that would be following the trend of other major marathons. Last year, the Boston Marathon closed in January, which was the earliest ever at that point. There were a lot of surprised people last year. This year when we opened registration in September, we made it very clear and very evident that it might continue to close out early. We tried to warn all qualifiers. We sent emails to everyone who entered and ran last year to notify them online registration had opened, as it always does in September. Then we sent a couple of reminders during the rest of September and October, to don’t wait. The trend is going to continue to close out early. We’re concerned that people might’ve been caught by surprise, but we did everything possible for people to register early and to know about it. There weren’t as many surprised people this year as compared to last year. A lot of people entered right away, in September and October. The did take our advice.”
Was this an aberration, or is the growth in popularity of marathons leading to more qualifiers?
“I think it’s both. There’s a resurgence, if you will, of marathoning in general. There are more people running, more people focusing on the marathon. We see the interest increasing once again. That seems to be the trend. It’s a testament to the popularity of running but also to the marathon.”
What do you think is causing that?
“People are realizing that fitness and running are a good outlet for whatever life’s challenges there are, including the economy. Maybe there are more people with more time to train based on their work situation. There’s a genuine acknowledgement that health is important, and running is a good way to alleviate tension or stress and also is a good lifestyle ingredient. We just see that trend as continuing. It has been for a few years now and we don’t see any letup in that. The popularity extends to half-marathons and other distances where we see a surge in participation. We also have a 5K and a half-marathon that fill up within days of registration opening.”
What effect might this have on the size of the field or qualifying standards?
“It’s an interesting position we find ourselves in. We’re up at the 25,000-runner limit now. We’ve let that creep over the past several years, from 20,000 up to 25,000. We believe in our case, and I can only speak for Boston, it’s still quality over quantity. We could easily have 30,000, 35,000, 40,000 runners. Which we’re not attempting to do. We think the quality of the run and the experience is still a priority over pure numbers. We continue to look for ways to make the event more efficient so as many people as possible can run. One response is to try to let the event grow in size, though we’re not finding that an easy solution at the moment.
“Another option is to tinker with qualifying times, which we’re not actively considering at this point. We’re looking at our systems on the ground, on site. What can we do to keep the race of high quality and allow more qualifiers in? We have more qualifiers (entered) this year than last year. We’ve pushed back on the number of invitational runners. We do have a robust charity program, but we’ve pushed back on some of that to allow more qualifiers. So we continue to look at that. That’s not to say we’re doing away with the charity program, because that’s a huge part of the success of these events. We’ll go over the $100 million mark in funds raised with the charity program this year.
“We need to balance it with the marquee element, which is the qualified runner.”
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