There is a new registration procedure in place for the Boston Marathon. If you’re not familiar, the Boston Marathon requires runners to run a qualifying time. For example, the current standard for males under 34 is 3:10. This standard was originally put in place to limit the number of runners tramping through Hopkinton and other small towns along the course. The time as moved up and down a few times, but it has always been a time marathoners considered challenging.

This challenge was appealing because it was achievable. It is a badge of honor to run Boston both because of its history and because of its strict standards. Amby Burfoot says, “Getting into Boston has become an honor, like qualifying for the Olympics or Olympic Trials, only at the people’s level. While only 10 percent of American marathoners are fast enough to qualify for Boston, the goal is more popular than ever.”  Also, many people as if you have run Boston as soon as they hear that you do marathons.

As more marathoners reached this standard, though, the race began filling up quickly. Last year, registration was full after only eight hours! The BAA, or Boston Athletic Association, had to do something to preserve the integrity of their race. Achieving a qualifying time is less meaningful if you aren’t able to run in the race due to a sluggish computer or a busy work schedule.

For months, hard core runners have been wondering what the BAA would do. Would they drastically alter the qualifying standards? Would they increase the number of slots available? Would they eliminate the charity runners (charity runners raise $3000-$5000 instead of running a qualifying time)?

The BAA had a few motivating principles to consider. One consideration is the elite tradition of the Boston Marathon. Its stringent qualifying criteria is a major draw. The BAA definitely wanted to maintain the tradition of honoring the fast folks among us.

Another consideration of the BAA was the towns along the course. It is a huge financial and civic commitment to stage a marathon in one city. The Boston Marathon runs through eight! These cities are already stressed with the current 25,000 runners. Increasing the field size would be a very difficult proposition.

A third issue was the issue of fairness. The BAA wanted to find a fair way to distribute the bib numbers. Last year’s biggest complaint was that runners with inflexible jobs or slow computers were frozen out. This was worsened by the fact that the BAA servers were crashed by the huge number of folks trying to register.

The BAA found a creative way to accomplish their objective. They achieved the first and third objective by instituting different waves of registration. The first wave consists only of qualifiers who beat the standard by 20 minutes or more. After two days, those who have a 10 minute cushion may register. On day five, runners who qualified by five minutes or more are allowed to register. After the first week, the registration is open to all qualifiers. This will ease the strain on the BAA servers and reward faster runners. Some have further interpreted the new standards to say that after that first week, the open registration will award bib numbers to the fastest runners first, so a runner who beat the standard by four minutes would earn a spot before a runner who beat the standard by 3:30

In 2013, the BAA will further drop the qualifying times by five minutes. This will help them limit the size of the field and accomplish their second objective. It’s wise to wait a year to lower the time because many runners shut out of this year’s race will want to apply next year. They would have been especially angry if their qualifying time was no longer valid.

The only drawback to the new policy is that there will no longer be a victorious feeling of accomplishment by a guy finishing with a 3:09 (or 3:04 next year). Only beating the qualifying standard by a significant amount will “guarantee” a bib number. My 3:07 a few years ago probably wouldn’t cut it.

The posters on the Runnersworld.com forum pointed out that it will further stratify qualifers. Now, there will be first tier, second tier, third tier, and general qualifiers. Running a 3:09 would be less prestigous for a 30 year old male than for a 28 year old female, but I guess that was probably already the case. At the race, though, qualifiers were qualifiers.