Boston Athletic Association

Time to run to sign up if you want to run in the hundred and thirty-first Boston Marathon this coming spring.

The BAA is reminding athletes qualifier registration for the marathon opened today.

It will be open through Friday, September eighteenth.

The marathon will be run Patriots' Day, Monday, April nineteenth.

This is kind of an update story from the Edmonton Marathon that we talked about.

So the Boston Athletic Association has rejected the qualifying times of 13 runners from the Edmonton Marathon after the course was found to be too long.

How does

that even

I was like, oh my gosh, did I mess up and miss the window? Yeah.

Oh, man.

Nonetheless, under BAA rules, Boston Athletic Association rules, Boston qualifying times must be the official net times recorded on certified courses.

The BAA will not accept mathematically adjusted results, even when runners complete more than the required marathon distance.

It was a cool experience, and I'm like, "I'll never have the time to email race directors to try to get in, so let's do it now." [chuckles]

[chuckles] I mean, 'cause you did, did-- Was it the mini 10K and the BAA 5K? Is that what I'm saying? Or BAA 10K, sorry.

I did the USATF 5K 'cause that was in Indy, so I could drive there.

Oh, yeah.

Cool.

Um, and then I did the BAA 10K.

Um, and then I did the USATF 6K 'cause that was up in, uh, Canton, Ohio, so I can drive there too.

Okay.

The error raised concerns for people's runtimes who are trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

On Wednesday, a statement was posted to the Edmonton Marathon website stating the Boston Athletic Association has agreed to accept all times for the longer course of all non-adjusted times.

This means that 92 participants reached a Boston qualifying time.

The non-adjusted times have affected 13 participants.

And finally, an update on the Edmonton Marathon controversy.

The Boston Athletic Association has accepted 92 qualifying times from the event, but has declined to recognize adjusted results that were calculated to account for the course measurement error.

As a result, 13 Edmonton runners have officially lost their qualifying spots for the Boston Marathon.

The sports update is brought to you by the great staff at Park Mazda and dealer principal Mitch Lewicki, your dealer for life.

His partnerships and relationship-building skills have created strong ties with the Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, and numerous participating hospitals.

As the medical coordinator to the Boston Athletic Association, he was instrumental in developing the medical coverage plan for the 100th running of the Boston Marathon and the medical response to the 2012 Boston Marathon, where over 2,300 runners were successfully treated during an 86-degree day.

During the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15th, he was the first responder while coordinating the post-bombing response in the hours and days after this tragic event.

Over the preceding six months following the Boston Marathon tragedy, Chris was implemental in designing and coordinating a global crisis management response plan, a plan that addressed the psychological needs of BAA volunteers and runners impacted from the bombings.

That was never a discussion in any of our preparations.

And I will tell you that as far as an event goes, we are one of the more prepared, uh, mass participatory events in the world.

Um, with the amount of people, uh, preparation, finances, everything that we do supported by the Boston Athletic Association, um, it's second to none.

So, you know, that day, again, it was, uh, it was one of the easier days that we had.

I'll say this, just as you noted.

got i've got i don't know how many medals we've between my wife and i we've got this like closet full of finishers medals from you know 15 to 20 years of running respectively from each of us i think that this is the nicest the front side of this medal that design is the classiest most elegant beautiful certainly world marathon major medal i mean it can The unicorn spike, the BAA icon, the iconic Boston Marathon finisher's medal has so much provenance and power and weight to it and is also kind of – Elegant in its own way as well.

And it's so desirable for so many runners that it stands alone.

But I would say besides many years of a very nice medal, although it's been up and down for the Boston Marathon over the years, I would say that just aesthetically speaking, this is the most tasteful finishers medal I have ever seen.

They made the error and now the athletes and the runners are having to deal with the consequences.

Yeah.

The BAA has said, hey, listen, even though the course was not accurate, we will honor the results because it was accurate in the most difficult and painful sort of way for the runners, which is it was long.

And so they're like, well, we'll take we'll take the time.

Qualifying questions arose after the length of the Edmonton course was determined to be two-thirds of a kilometer longer than regulation.

The Boston Athletic Association said if a runner in Edmonton met the qualifying time to finish the race, even if they had to run farther than they normally should have to do it, they can still qualify.

The Edmonton Marathon says more than ten thousand people registered for its race Sunday.

After the event, several racers said their calculations put the race course longer than a regulation marathon and half-marathon course.