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BOSTON - (January 17, 2006) - In a change designed to provide a better experience at the beginning of the race both for participants and residents, the Boston Athletic Association in cooperation with the Town of Hopkinton will implement a wave start for this year's Boston Marathon.
In employing the change, all participants will be staged and begin on a single commercial street (Main Street, also known as Route 135) in two waves of approximately 10,000 athletes per wave. No longer will runners wait to begin the race while lined-up on residential streets. Hundreds of volunteers will escort runners from an expanded Athletes' Village at Hopkinton High School to their starting corrals, preventing them from stopping on or in front of private or public property. Approximately half of the anticipated field of 20,000 official entrants will begin in the first wave and the remaining half of the field will begin one-half hour later in the second wave.
The starting time for the first wave of runners will be Noon and the second wave will begin at 12:30pm. Remaining the same as in each of the last two years (since 2004), a few mobility-impaired participants will begin at 10:00am, several dozen wheelchair division competitors will begin at 11:25am, and approximately 50-70 of the race's fastest women will begin in a separate Elite Women's Start at 11:31am. The exact starting line itself, adjacent to the Hopkinton Town Green, remains unchanged.
"This improvement will result in a vastly more efficient race," said Dave McGillivray, Boston Marathon Race Director. "This change is all positive and will benefit everything about the Boston Marathon, including our transportation plan and our accommodation of runners in the hours leading up to the race."
Another of the benefits of the wave start is that it will reduce the amount of time that it takes for runners to cross the starting line. Last year, with approximately 20,000 official entrants, the last official participant crossed the starting line approximately 30 minutes after the starting gun was fired. Although the B.A.A.'s timing and scoring system records participants' net times, in the past it may have taken runners until several miles down the course before they could begin to run freely and without obstruction due to the density of runners during the race's early stages.
Another change will be that runners will be scored and ranked by their net time, which means that - although they will be starting 30 minutes later than those in the first wave - runners from the second wave will be timed and scored from the time they cross the starting line until the time they cross the finish line. Prize money winners will continue to be awarded by gun time (not net time).
Because the second wave will begin at 12:30pm, the finish line timing and scoring operation will remain open until 6:30pm. Since 1997, the Boston Marathon finish line has stayed up and running until just after 6:00pm, recording all official participants who run within the six hour time limit.
"These changes represent a major step forward for the Boston Marathon and its runners," said the B.A.A.'s Executive Director Guy Morse. "Everyone wins with this plan. Wave starts have been implemented and received with overwhelming and widespread success in road racing, as well as in other sports. There is no anticipated down-side with our plan."
This year's marathon, set for Monday, April 17, is the 110th edition of the world's oldest annual marathon. The Boston Marathon has started in Hopkinton, Massachusetts since 1924. From the race's inception in 1897 until 1923, the Boston Marathon began in neighboring Ashland.
source RunningUSA
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