In October 2010, the Boston Marathon became a victim of its own popularity: Too many people hit the race’s qualifying times, and, on the first day of registration for the 2011 race, overwhelmed the Boston Athletic Administration’s servers and hit the race’s max capacity in eight hours. As recently as 2008, registration had stayed open just before the race itself in mid April.
Four months of deliberation later, the BAA rolled out a new system that favors faster runners and spreads the registration process across a two-week period. And at a time when more people are running marathons in the United States but average finish times continue to get worse, Boston gets credit for bucking the trend and raising its standards. Want to run Boston? Better train harder.
Read more at The Boston Globe
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