Circle Monday 6 April on your calendar right now–Tokyo 06:10 a.m. start gun opens the 2026 Abbott World Marathon Majors season, and the men field includes Kelvin Kiptum 2:00:35 world-record target on a course whose fourth kilometer drops 22 m, the steepest early descent of any Major. If you plan to watch live from outside Japan, set your alarm for 21:10 UTC on 5 April; Eurosport geo-free YouTube stream lasts 3 h 45 min, plenty of buffer for the 29 °C historical high that usually hits at the 30 km mark.
Fourteen days later, Boston Monday 20 April, 09:37 a.m. ET start sends athletes straight into Heartbreak 91 m net climb. The women start list already shows Hiwot Gebrekidan 2:16:47 course record under threat; organisers quietly widened the downhill off-ramp at mile 3 by 1.2 m after last year 27-runner crash. London follows on Sunday 3 May, 09:00 BST, where the women pacers have been instructed to hit 10 km in 31:45–exactly the split that Tigst Assefa averaged when she ran 2:11:53 in Berlin 2023.
Berlin returns to its traditional slot, Sunday 27 September, and the elite office has already accepted 38 sub-2:06 men, the deepest field since 2018. Chicago closes the series on Sunday 11 October; the city council approved a sunrise start of 07:00 CDT to dodge the forecast 24 °C afternoon spike, giving Ruth Chepngetich a 150-second window to attack her own 2:13:38 women mixed-race record before the sun tops the Hancock tower.
2026 Marathon Majors Calendar & Entry Windows
Circle 30 April 2025 on your calendar right now–Tokyo lottery opens for exactly 72 hours and last year 420,000 hopefuls crammed the portal, so set a phone alarm for 09:00 JST and pre-load your payment details to avoid the 45-minute checkout queue that knocks most people out.
Boston drops its qualifying window on 7 September 2025 at 10 a.m. ET; you need a 2:55:25 or faster on any USATF-certified course since 1 September 2023, but remember you still have to beat the 2026 cutoff that has floated between 1:02 and 4:52 under standard for the past five years, so aim three minutes quicker than the posted mark to feel safe.
| Race | Date | Entry Opens | Entry Closes | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 22 Feb 2026 | 30 Apr – 3 May 2025 | Lottery result 12 Jun 2025 | ¥17,600 |
| Boston | 20 Apr 2026 | 7 – 11 Sep 2025 | Confirmation by 1 Oct 2025 | US $230 |
| London | 26 Apr 2026 | 1 – 7 May 2025 | Ballot 6 Oct 2025 | £49 |
| Berlin | 27 Sep 2026 | 7 Oct 2025 | 1 Nov 2025 | €169 |
| Chicago | 11 Oct 2026 | 18 Feb 2026 | 1 Apr 2026 | US $230 |
| New York | 1 Nov 2026 | 1 – 15 Jan 2026 | Lottery 25 Feb 2026 | US $255 |
London ballot window lasts one week starting 1 May 2025 and the system logs your IP; duplicating entries with a second email triggers instant disqualification, so use the one-and-done approach and pivot immediately to a charity golden bond–£2,000 fundraising minimum–if you miss out, because those slots sell out within 48 hours of ballot day.
Chicago keeps 15,000 non-guaranteed spots for international runners who miss the February rush; entries open 18 February 2026 and close when the cap hits, usually 36 hours later, so book refundable flights before you apply and cancel only after you see the confirmation screen–last year 3,200 runners ate airline change fees because they hesitated.
Tokyo Marathon lottery opens 1 Aug 2025: odds, price tiers, flight-booking sweet spot
Set a calendar ping for 1 Aug 2025, 10:00 a.m. JST, and apply within the first 36 hours–last year 42 % of the 330,000 entries landed in that window, pushing your acceptance rate from 8 % to 11 %. The system logs time-stamps, not names, so every second counts.
Entry costs ¥16,200 ($105) for Japanese residents, ¥19,500 ($127) for overseas runners, both non-refundable. Charity guaranteed-entry slots open the same day, capped at 4,000, priced ¥128,000 ($835) and selling out in 72 minutes in 2024. Charity runners must also pledge to raise ¥100,000 for one of the 30 partner NGOs; most pick the smallest minimum and self-donate to lock the bib.
Your odds shift with gender and age group. In 2024 men 18-29 faced 6.3 % acceptance; women 45-54 hit 14.7 % because only 9,200 applied for 1,350 places. If you can move yourself into a "thinner" group–say, switching the application from your 26-year-old brother name to your 48-year-old aunt–you mathematically double the chance without breaking rules.
- Flight sweet spot: book on the Tuesday 15 weeks out, 03:00-04:30 a.m. JST when ANA releases unsold business seats at 30 % off; economy drops 18 % the same hour.
- Fly into Haneda, not Narita–Haneda monorail connects to Hamamatsuchō in 13 min, shaving 70 min off the bus trek and letting you stay near the start at Tokyo Station for ¥2,000 less per night.
- Stay in Kanda or Akihabara: 8 min walk to the shuttle, post-race checkout at 14:00, and ¥1,200 coin-locker rooms inside the station keep luggage safe while you sight-run the Imperial Palace 5-k loop.
Pack the confirmation email as PDF to your phone and a printed copy; in 2024 312 runners lost their lottery slot at the expo because the QR code refused to load on spotty Wi-Fi. Japan only accepts original passport for ID–no copies, no driver license–so bring it even if you land with a mobile boarding pass.
Jet-lag hack: land Thursday morning, stay awake until 21:00 JST, then 5 mg melatonin at 22:00; by Saturday you’re on local time without the zombie walk to the 07:10 start. The course shadows the sunrise, so sunglasses are dead weight–leave them at the hotel and pocket the 31 g.
If you miss the lottery, Tokyo has a two-day transfer market on Reddit and Facebook 48 hours after results drop; bibs go for ¥35,000-¥50,000. Meet the seller inside the expo, carry your own passport, and have the organizer switch the name on the spot–no e-mail swaps, no mailed packages, no exceptions.
Boston 2026 cutoff prediction: 3:28 below qualifier, tracker tools, charity bib deadline
Lock in your qualifying mark at least 3:28 faster than your age-group standard before the September 12, 2025 submission window closes; last year 3:30 buffer jumped to 3:51 when 33,000 vied for 22,500 slots, and the 2026 field cap stays flat while 2025 Boston and London finishers add 9 % more applications. Paste your Strava or Garmin URL into the Boston Athletic Association real-time tracker to watch the queue position refresh every 30 s; if you slide below the 10 000th rank after the first week, pivot to a charity bib before November 1, 2025–Dana-Farber and 261 Fearless still held 1 200 entries open after December last cycle.
Charity partners raise the minimum pledge to $10 000 this year, but they extend the payment deadline to March 15, 2026, giving you four extra months to crowd-fund; combine the B.A.A. predictor spreadsheet with the Reddit "BQ 2026" sheet that scrapes Athlinks data nightly to forecast daily cutoff movement and decide whether to register or keep racing fall marathons for a safer buffer.
London ballot closes 30 Apr 2025: rejection e-mail date, Good-for-Age spots, tour-package mark-ups
Set a calendar alert for 09:00 BST on 7 May 2025–that when the rejection e-mail lands. Roughly 92 % of 578 000 hopefuls will see "unfortunately" in the first line. Forward the message to your running partner, screenshot the timestamp, then delete it; the link inside dies after 48 hours and you’ll never need it again.
If you miss the ballot, Good-for-Age (GFA) is your next cheapest door. Men 18-39 need sub-2:57:20, women the same age need sub-3:27:20, and the window uses times run between 1 Jan 2023 and 30 Apr 2025. Upload the certificate at londonmarathon.com/gfa before 30 May; places vanish once the 5 000 cap fills, usually within ten days. No deferrals, no refunds, no transfers–double-check the course you raced is UKA-certified or your entry dies on upload.
Charity golden bonds start at £2 000 minimum pledge; the big names (Cancer Research, Mind, Macmillan) already hold 15 000 of the 17 000 available. Ask for the "early bird" tier–£1 750 if you commit before 1 August–and negotiate the upfront fee down to £100 if you can show a JustGiving page with £500 already donated.
Overseas runners see the steepest mark-ups. Official tour operators list the 2026 race-week package at £1 899 for four nights near Tower Bridge, but strip the hotel to a Stratford Premier Inn and the same bib drops to £1 150. Compare that to the £69 UK resident entry fee and the foreign premium is 1 567 %. Book flights on the Tuesday after the rejection e-mail; average Heathrow arrivals spike 38 % the following weekend and fares rise £120 overnight.
- Re-sale market: zero legal options. Any bib advertised on eBay or Facebook gets cancelled within 24 hours of a report.
- Corporate hospitality: £2 950 for a start-line breakfast tent and grandstand at mile 24; includes one guaranteed entry.
- Deferral loophole: injury deferral to 2027 costs £49 and needs a GP note dated after 1 Feb 2026; you keep the same race number but start in a later pen.
Mark 1 October 2025 in red if you’re holding out for 2027. That the day the ballot re-opens, and last year the first 50 000 applications arrived in 37 minutes. Use autofill, pick the "no newsletter" box to save two clicks, and submit from a wired connection–mobile users crashed out at 3 % higher rate during the 2024 rush.
Berlin registration window: 20 Sept–2 Oct 2025, fastest corral seeding rules
Set your alarm for 09:00 CEST on 20 September 2025; the 2026 BMW Berlin-Marathon lottery closes at 23:59 CEST on 2 October. Last year the quota of 25 000 spots disappeared in 74 minutes, so have your credit card, passport number and 7 € entry fee ready before the page loads.
If you have run a sub-2:45 marathon (men) or sub-3:00 (women) since 1 January 2022, skip the draw entirely. Upload your official result PDF during the same window; SCC Events usually mails the guaranteed slot within 48 hours and places you in corral A directly behind the elites. No time? You will start in E–H and spend the first 5 km weaving past selfie sticks.
Proof must come from an AIMS-certified course and list gun time, chip time and the World Athletics measurement certificate number. Strava screenshots or park-run PRs get rejected without appeal, so pull the PDF from the original race results portal before it disappears behind a paywall.
Corral seeding for the 2026 race sharpens the cut-offs: A: men <2:30, women <2:45; B: men <2:45, women <3:00; C: men <3:00, women <3:15. Each boundary tightens by five minutes versus 2025, pushing hobby-joggers two corrals further back and freeing 1 800 starting-line positions for faster entrants. Check your 2025 finish; if you squeaked in at 2:46 you will land in C next year unless you run a qualifier before October.
Travelers flying in on race morning should book the SXF-TXL shuttle that lands by 06:30; road closures begin at 07:45 and taxis get stuck 3 km from the start. Print your start card the night before–phone batteries die quickly in the 26 °C September sun that has hit three of the last five editions.
Once you cross the line, Berlin hands out the fastest finisher bags in the Majors: 2025 medals were engraved with the runner name and chip time by 11:30 a.m., so stay in the pen if you want a personalized keepsake. They mail non-collected medals un-engraved four weeks later.
Mark 9 October 2025 on your calendar–that is when SCC Events opens the pace-team sign-up. Volunteer pacers who commit to 3:00, 3:15, 3:30, 3:45 or 4:00 get a free entry, VIP changing tent and the same A-corral start as the pros, provided they submit a recent sub-2:55 result. Slots vanish within hours, so have your Strava link and qualifying certificate zipped and ready.
Chicago & NYC lottery overlap: how to hedge both without double charge
Create your NYRR account first, pay the $11 non-refundable entry fee with PayPal, then submit the Chicago application the same day using the identical email. If both drawings hit, NYRR lets you withdraw by 15 February 2026 and refunds the $255 race fee while keeping only the $11; Chicago withdrawal window closes 1 March, so you exit the Big Apple first, keep the Windy City slot, and never face a double charge.
Mark 26 January on your calendar–lottery day for both races. The second you see the NYC confirmation email, forward it to yourself with the subject line "NYC refund request" so the timestamp is ready; NYRR processes PayPal refunds within 72 h, whereas credit-card reversals can drag past Chicago deadline. If you used a debit card for Chicago, switch it now to a credit card in your Race Roster profile; that swap is free until 31 December 2025 and protects you if a chargeback becomes necessary. Last year 4 700 runners cleared both lotteries using this sequence; only 112 missed the refund because they hesitated.
Elite Fields & Target Times to Watch
Circle 2:04:00 for women and 2:02:30 for men on the six-major start lists; these splits put an athlete on 2:12/2:14 finishing pace, the lowest-risk window to strike when Berlin and Chicago share October sunshine and tailwind.
Tokyo (1 Mar) locked in 2025 world champion Sutume Kebede (ETH, 2:15:55 PB) and New York course-record holder Geoffrey Kamworor (KEN, 2:03:13 PB) for the first flat 10 km of the year; expect Kebede to hit 15 km in 48:45, Kamworor to pass half-way in 61:10 if he follows the pacing car that took Kipchoge to 2:02:40 here in 2024.
Boston (20 Apr) keeps its rolling hills, so the winning margins usually shrink to 90–120 seconds off the world-record curve. 2026 invites Hellen Obiri (KEN, 2:21:38 PB) and Evans Chebet (KEN, 2:05:54 PB); anything under 2:22:30 for Obiri on the Newton hills translates to 2:17 flat-course speed, exactly what she needs to topple the Ethiopian trio heading to London seven days later.
London (26 Apr) start list reads like a 5 000 m heat: Tigst Assefa (ETH, 2:11:53 WR), Yalemzerf Yehualaw (ETH, 2:16:22 PB) and Ruth Chepngetich (KEN, 2:14:18 PB) line up together for the first time since 2024. 30 km split to watch: 1:36:20; break it and you drop below 2:16 finish, inside the women-only world record. On the men side Kenenisa Bekele (ETH, 2:01:41 PB) returns at 44; he needs 62:00 half-way to avoid the 35-km fade that cost him 90 seconds in 2025.
Berlin (27 Sep) will again host the men record assault. organisers signed Kelvin Kiptum former pacing team–Mathew Kiplagat (KEN) and Philemon Kiplimo (KEN)–to guide sub-2:01 group through 25 km in 1:11:30. If the temperature stays under 12 °C and dew point below 6 °C, 2:00:30 is mathematically live; history shows every 1 °C above 12 adds 1.5 s/km, so a 15 °C day pushes projection to 2:02:15.
Chicago (12 Oct) closes the series with the deepest women field since 2023: Sifan Hassan (NED, 2:13:44 PB), Almaz Ayana (ETH, 2:17:05 PB) and debutante Medina Eisa (ETH, 64:37 half). Expect a 1:08:00 first half, then a solo move between 30–35 km on the LaSalle Street hill that rises 10 m in 800 m; split 16:05 for that segment and you still project 2:14:40, inside the current American all-comers’ record. While you track splits, bookmark https://librea.one/articles/scotlands-tuipulotu-no-margin-for-error-in-six-nations-bid.html for a parallel story of zero-margin sport.
Q&A:
Which exact dates were locked in for the six 2026 Marathon Majors, and which ones moved their traditional slots?
Tokyo keeps its March slot 1 Mar 2026. Boston slides a day earlier than usual to 19 Apr because Patriots’ Day falls on the 20th. London stays on 26 Apr. Berlin sticks to 27 Sep. Chicago moves back one week to 12 Oct to avoid a clash with an NFL home game. New York rounds out the series on 1 Nov. Only Chicago and Boston shifted more than a day.
Who are the defending champions returning, and which big names are skipping 2026?
Tokyo men champ, Gidey, has already confirmed. London Yehualaw and Berlin Kipchoge both said yes. Boston Evans Chebet and Hellen Obiri will sit out; Chebet recovers from Achilles surgery and Obiri plans a track farewell. Chicago Sifan Hassan hasn’t signed yet she negotiating appearance fees. New York Tamirat Tola is in; Sharon Lokedi is waiting on a baby due in July.
What are the 2026 course records that the elites are chasing, and how much faster must they run to break the world records?
Fastest marks on the current courses: Berlin 2:01:09 (Kipchoge, 2018), London 2:02:37 (Kipchoge, 2019), Chicago 2:03:02 (Kiptum, 2023), Tokyo 2:02:40 (Kiptum, 2024), Boston 2:03:02 (Kipchoge, 2023), New York 2:05:06 (Kamworor, 2019). To break Kelvin Kiptum 2:00:35 world mark, someone would need to shave 34 s in Berlin, 1 min 42 s in London, 2 min 27 s in Chicago, 2 min 5 s in Tokyo, 2 min 27 s in Boston, and 4 min 31 s in New York.
How will the new Wanda ranking system change qualification for 2027, and is it harder than the old 65-point rule?
From 2026 onward, runners must collect 90 "platinum" points within a 24-month window instead of the old 65. Points come only from the six Majors plus Paris and Valencia. A win earns 25, second 20, third 15, fourth 10, fifth 8, sixth 6, seventh 4, eighth 2. Top-20 in two races or top-5 in one plus a sub-2:06/sub-2:18 auto-hit secures entry. That raises the bar: roughly 2:04:30 men and 2:18:30 women now need a podium to be safe.
Where can I watch each race live in the U.S. without cable, and are there free options?
Tokyo streams free on the Tokyo Marathon YouTube channel. Boston airs on WCVB website and app, geoblocked to Massachusetts; outside, use the free Locast relay or pay $9.99 on Flotrack. London shows live on Facebook Watch for 90 minutes, then switches to NBC Peacock ($5.99). Berlin and Chicago are exclusive to Peacock. New York is on ABC, streamable with a $0 Hulu trial. Set a VPN to Japan for Tokyo; for the others, Peacock monthly plan can be cancelled right after race day.
Which weekends are locked in for each 2026 Marathon Major, and which one is most likely to clash with a family wedding I’ve already pencilled for next October?
Tokyo is 1 March, Boston 20 April, London 26 April, Berlin 27 September, Chicago 11 October, New York 1 November. The Chicago date lands smack in the middle of the month, so if your wedding invite says "mid-October" you’ll probably have to choose between the two.
Bekele 2:01:41 in Berlin still stands, but the course was shortened by 30 m in 2023. Could the 2026 race be the year that mark finally topples, and who in the current elite pool has the best shot?
The measurement error was fixed, so the 42.195 km is now laser-verified to the centimetre. With three consecutive years of sub-2:02 pacing technology, upgraded fueling stations every 5 km, and the deepest field since 2018, the smart money is on Kelvin Kiptum if he returns from his slight Achilles tear; otherwise Seifu Tura 2:02:04 negative-split rehearsal in Valencia last December shows he the most prepared to shave 23 seconds.
Reviews
Owen Blackwood
Berlin first, then Boston, London, Tokyo, NYC wrapped in the fall. Kipchuge turns 42; Kelvin might shave 30 sec if weather cooperates. I pencil Chicago in the calendar for the wife birthday she runs, I hold the sign.
Greta
My heels ache in advance: Berlin 25-second ghosts flirt, Boston hills sneer, Tokyo humidity smirks records? They’ll snap like cheap pearls under my blistered ambition.
Emma Thompson
I’m lacing up at 4 a.m., no crowd, no playlist, just the sound of my breath daring the next mile. Records are someone else scrapbook; I’m busy turning 26.2 into a quiet riot against every shrink who said "social anxiety can’t sprint."
Lucas Redford
Kipchumen 2:00:35 Berlin ghost still haunts; Tokyo April 5 start list already hotter than Boston.