Everyone who submitted a time that qualified them for the race in April will be allowed to participate.

The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) declared the cutoff time for the 2022 Boston Marathon to be—drumroll, please—0 minutes and 0 seconds on Thursday, November 18.

For the first time since 2013, Boston will be open to all competitors who ran a verifiable qualifying time for their age group and gender within the qualifying window. All competitors must be properly immunized to compete.

A little less than the size of the event prior to the pandemic, the field size—which includes qualified, charity, and special invitation participants—is 30,000 runners. Before COVID-19 prompted the race’s cancellation, the 2020 edition was scheduled to draw 31,500 participants.

However, there were fewer opportunities for runners to run a qualifying time for the 2022 race because the pandemic eliminated the majority of marathons after mid-March 2020. Starting on September 1, 2019, and ending on November 12, 2021, was the qualification period for runners competing in the 2022 race.

In contrast to the 27,288 applicants for the 2020 Boston Marathon, only roughly 24,000 runners submitted applications for the 2022 Boston, according to the BAA.

In a statement, Tom Grilk, president and chief executive officer of the BAA, said, “I am delighted to share that everyone who applied with a valid qualifying time will be joining us for the 126th Boston Marathon.” “It will be a historic return to Patriots’ Day and I am pleased to welcome this dedicated group of qualifiers back to the roads of Hopkinton to Boston on the third Monday in April for the first time in three years.”

For many years, runners have talked about the Boston Marathon cutoff time. There have been more qualified applications than there were available spaces in the field, thus the BAA has been filling the field with the fastest qualifiers first. Running a qualifying time alone hasn’t been enough to get into the event.

The cutoff time for the 2019 marathon was 4:52, and more than 7,000 participants were turned away. The BAA strengthened the requirements in 2020, speeding them up by 5 seconds for each age group.

The 2020 race’s cutoff time was 1:39, however it never took place.

The 2021 race was an exception in the annals of racing. Due to the epidemic, it was shifted from its customary April date to October for the first time, and the deadline was an absurd 7:47. Because of COVID regulations, the field was limited to 20,000 runners.