By Peter Vigneron

Boston Marathon organizers have announced adjustments to qualifying times and registration policies for the 2012 and 2013 Boston Marathons. The marathon will institute a two-week, rolling registration process beginning for 2012, and will lower standards by five minutes across all age and gender categories beginning in 2013. BAA executive director Tom Grilk said that he expects race entry fees to rise by between $5 and $20, up from the current price of $130 for U.S. residents.

The rolling admission process rewards runners with faster qualifying times. When the BAA opens registration for the 2012 race on September 12, 2011, only runners who have met the standard by more than 20 minutes will be able to sign up. (A man in his 20s would need a time of 2:50 for 2012, and 2:45 for 2013, to register on day one.) During the first week of registration, the BAA will gradually allow runners with slower times to enter the registration pool.

For example, runners who have bettered their standard by 10 minutes or more can register midway through week one; by week two any runner who has met the standard can register, space permitting. During week two, priority will be still be granted to faster runners–a man with a 3:02 time will gain entry ahead of a man with a 3:03 time, regardless of when during week two the men signed up. A table showing the registration timeline is available on the BAA’s website and at the end of this article. If the field is still not filled after two weeks, registration will stay open to any qualified runner until the limit is met.

The announcement has been widely anticipated in the running community, and puts to rest speculation that Boston would follow other major marathons and move to a lottery based registration system. If anything, it is a clear sign that Boston intends to retain its reputation as an event for competitive runners. “We’re about excellence,” Boston race director Dave McGillivray said. “We want people to get better, from a competitive perspective.”

The race decided on a consistent drop in qualifying standards for 2013, though some have suggested that certain qualifying marks–particularly for women–are easier than others. “Looking back at the data that we have, focused on the Boston Marathon, we found that the fairest way to deal with this is to have a uniform reduction in qualifying standards across the board,” Grilk said. The race will also do away with the 59-second grace window for qualifying times for 2013, meaning the new standard for a man in his 20s will be 3:05:00, not 3:05:59, as it would have under previous rules. The qualifying window will open one year prior to the registration period–for 2013, runners can record a qualifying time at any point between September 2011 and early September 2012.

The changes come on the heels of last October’s registration period, which lasted eight hours, the shortest in race history. The BAA experienced server overload, and anecdotal reports suggested that some qualified runners were unable to gain entry, although how many remains unclear. Computer problems, Grilk says, will not arise in September. “A great deal attention is going into that,” he said. Following today’s announcement, however, load times on baa.org were inconsistent and sometimes lasted several minutes or longer.

The race has not yet announced a field size for 2012 or 2013, although BAA spokesman Jack Fleming said that he did not expect a change from previous year totals in the 25,000 to 26,000 range. According to the the Boston Globe, 22,721 runners finished the race in 2010. Currently, the BAA reserves as much as 20 percent of the field for charity, corporate, and local runners–roughly 5,000 spaces. In recent years, that total has been shrinking, former BAA head Guy Morse said.

2013 Boston Marathon Qualifying Standards, courtesy Boston Athletic Association