The Boston Marathon is unlike any other marathon , which is part of its appeal. You can’t just sign up whenever you wish. Most runners need a qualifying time from another marathon, and that qualifying time has to have been run with a set date range on a certified course . And it’s not always enough just to run a little faster than your qualifying time for your gender and age group. In many recent years, getting into the race has required runners to best their qualifying times by substantial margins in order to gain entry. For the 2021 race, for instance, which had a smaller field size than usual to prevent the spread of COVID-19, runners had to be 7:47 faster than their qualifying time to be accepted into the race, leaving thousands of runners who had tried to register shut out. At the 2022 and 2023 race, however, in the wake of the pandemic, there was no cutoff time . All time qualifiers were accepted. In 2026, the cutoff was 4:34 .…