With the 130th Boston Marathon now nine days away, the Boston Athletic Association has confirmed the full race-week schedule and begun issuing the Digital Number Pick-Up Passes that runners will need to collect their bibs at the Bank of America Boston Marathon Expo. The expo runs Friday 17 April to Sunday 19 April at the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center on Boylston Street, with the final pick-up window closing at 6 PM on Sunday evening for a race that begins early on Monday 20 April. Officials have once again underlined that there is no race-morning bib collection, a reminder pitched particularly at first-time qualifiers.
This year's digital check-in, introduced on a limited basis in 2023 and rolled out fully since 2025, now covers every athlete in the field. Runners receive a personalised email containing a QR-coded pass which, combined with government photo identification, is scanned at entry to the expo's secure pickup zone. The BAA says the system has reduced typical queueing times by roughly 40 per cent and has enabled more granular distribution of bib numbers across the six new start waves, which range in size from around 3,200 to 7,100 runners. Digital pass emails began rolling out to athletes earlier this week.
The expo itself has been expanded again this year and will host around 80 exhibitors, an Adidas Boston Marathon retail store, a live stage featuring coaching clinics and athlete Q&A sessions, and a heritage area marking the 130th edition with artefacts from the race's archive. The programme includes appearances from several past champions and returning elite athletes, with a full athlete press conference scheduled for Friday afternoon. The BAA Invitational Mile and BAA 5K will once again take place on Saturday 18 April, giving spectators a chance to see elite athletes racing on Boylston Street two days before the marathon itself.
Behind the scenes, race-week logistics have grown more complex with each edition, and this year's six-wave start format has required a substantial rewrite of bus loading, athletes' village operations and runner communications. Runners will again be assigned colour-coded wave buses that begin rolling out from Boston Common to Hopkinton from around 6:00 AM, with later waves departing through the mid-morning. The BAA has added additional seating and covered accommodation at the athletes' village to handle the longer waiting times created by the new six-wave rollout, and has repositioned several hydration and toilet clusters accordingly.
For the city of Boston, race week has long since become more than a sporting event — it is a cultural moment that draws an estimated half a million spectators onto the course from Hopkinton to Copley Square, and this year's anniversary framing has encouraged several partner events to be added to the public programme. A series of neighbourhood-level welcome events along the course, organised in collaboration with local running clubs, begin on Saturday morning, and the Commonwealth Avenue mile between Kenmore Square and the finish will again be dressed in the race's signature blue and yellow. By Friday evening, Boylston Street will feel, as it does every April, like a small town built for a single, very long Monday.