Boston Marathon keeps getting tougher

It keeps getting tougher to run Boston, even before you get on the course.

Wednesday marks the last day for those who have run under standard to try and grab a spot in next spring’s Boston Marathon, but good luck getting a bib.

Demand for the historic race seems to be higher than ever and fewer spots than in previous years is making it more and more difficult to get bibs. It’s so notoriously difficult to gain entrance some are believed to have cheated to be given bib numbers.

The number of bibs for the race is set for the 2016 running at 30,000, more than has been allowed in all but a few years since the 121-year-old race began, but about the same as 2015 and about 5,000 less than in 2014, one year after two men detonated pressure cooker bombs near the finish line. The 2014 race saw the second-most registrants, behind the centennial year of 1996.

Because demand for the race is so high, organizers in recent years have introduced a tiered entry system based on how far under the standard a qualifying mark is, making it progressively more difficult to qualify and making achieving entrance standards less reliable on ensuring a bib number.

Last Monday, on Sept. 14, registration opened for the event for those who had achieved their standard by more than 20 minutes. Last Wednesday, those who had achieved standard by more than 10 minutes were allowed to enter and on Friday the differential was dropped to five minutes. Two days ago, on Monday, Sept. 21, anyone remaining who had achieved standard could apply until Wednesday for however many bibs of the 24,000 were remaining (the other 6,000 bibs are reserved for other means of entrance, mostly charity runners). This year that number was reportedly only about 5,000, around 3,000 fewer than one year ago when the same system for about the same number of entries was used.

If the number of entries between Monday and Wednesday is more than 5,000, which seems likely, registrants will be time-graded and those who’ve bettered their standard by the widest margins given bib numbers.

It keeps getting tougher and tougher to run Boston.