Qualifying for the Boston Marathon is about to get tougher. On Monday, the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) announced it will introduce time penalties for runners who qualify on net-downhill courses with significant elevation drops.
The B.A.A. said it will begin adjusting qualifying times from steep downhill marathons starting with registration for the 2027 Boston Marathon. The new policy targets races with at least 1,500 feet (450 metres) of net elevation loss, which, according to recent data, gives runners a substantial advantage.
Since 2022, the B.A.A. has found that runners of similar fitness levels tend to perform better on steep downhill courses compared to flatter or uphill routes. However, those same runners often struggle to maintain their advantage in Boston, where they are overtaken by competitors who ran the same qualifying times on a tougher course.
“This is about fairness,” said B.A.A. CEO Jack Fleming in a press release. “We’ve seen explosive growth in marathon popularity, and with Boston spots more coveted than ever, we need to make sure all qualifiers are on equal footing—literally.”
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Here’s how the new rules work:
Courses with 1,500–2,999 feet (450–900 metres) of net downhill will carry a +5:00 time penalty.
Courses with 3,000–5,999 feet (900–1,800 metres) of net downhill will receive a +10:00 time penalty.
Courses with a net downhill of 6,000 feet (1,800+ metres) or more will no longer be eligible for Boston Marathon qualifying at all.
These adjustments, referred to as “downhill indexing,” will be applied automatically once a runner submits a verified qualifying time. The rule will take effect with the 2027 Boston Marathon qualifying window, which opens Sept. 13, 2025.
To our knowledge, no Canadian marathons are expected to be penalized under the new rules. However, the popular REVEL Marathon race series, held in Utah, California, and Nevada, features net-downhill courses that exceed 1,000 metres. Each year, thousands of runners qualify for Boston at REVEL events, but they will now face a 10-minute penalty.
For now, runners eyeing Boston in 2026 can still use net-downhill courses without penalty. The new rules only apply to races run during the qualifying window for the 2027 Boston Marathon and beyond.
