Shipping up to Boston

Left for Boston last night. Today, it is time to head to the Hynes Convention Center for the John Hancock Sports and Fitness Expo. All sorts of exciting stuff is happening for the race.

• Inaugural marathon Olympic gold medalist, two time Boston champion, and former world record holder Joan Samuelson announced on Monday that she would be in the race with the other elite women. 
• $132 million of income for the Boston area
• 26,923 official runners
• 4,307 runners from 66 countries outside the US
• Estimated 500,000 spectators
• Four time Boston champion Bill Rodgers will serve as Grand Marshal. 
• Seeing as how marathon registration filled in eight hours this year, the BAA has decided to make two notable changes for registration. First, all times have been dropped by five minutes, and the 59 second grace time is gone. My former BQ time of 3:10:59 is now 3:05:00. Second, the registration process will "roll" where the fastest runners (who beat the BQ time by 20 minutes) get to register first. People who merely meet the standard get to register a week later, and then you are only "applying" for a spot, no guarantees.

See this video from Dave McGillvray from the BAA discussing the changes.