The allocation of spots for the Tufts Marathon Team (TMT) has this year become increasingly competitive as the program faces cuts to the number of spots available for runners from the Tufts community.
TMT, formerly the President's Marathon Challenge, since 2003 has supported 200 Tufts community members as they train and participate in the Boston Marathon in April through a partnership with primary sponsor John Hancock Financial Services. The number of affiliated runners, however, was reduced to 100 as part of the deal made last spring to extend the partnership for another two years, according to TMT Coach Don Megerle.
"This year, with a hundred numbers … it's become a very selective process," Megerle said.
About half of the available slots are reserved for alumni, faculty, staff and parents, according to Megerle, and the other half are accorded to undergraduate and graduate students. The 50 available student spots will be allocated early next semester based on seniority and order of registration, with priority going to students in their last year of study at Tufts.
"It's going to be really rough," ShivaniSockanathan, a senior, said. "I just hope I can run it for Tufts."
Sockanathan said she had considered joining the team as a junior but assumed she would not get a spot.
Megerle anticipates that this year may be the first in which some non−student runners might not be able to participate.
"This year it'll be first−come, first−serve," he said. "In the past, where we had 200 numbers to distribute, rarely did [a parent or alum] not get in."
Tufts community members who run with the Tufts team bypass the Boston Marathon's intensive qualifying process, according to Megerle, and do not pay the registration fee. TMT participants are expected to raise money for Tufts' Personalized Performance Program and to support research on childhood obesity conducted by Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
While students this year are required to raise $1,500, a $500 increase from previous years, the other 50 participants' contribution requirement has doubled this year from $2,500 to $5,000, Megerle said. He said that this might be a factor in the program's lower turnout this year.
"Normally we get about 400−plus people. This year, we got about 230, because of the … increased amount of fundraising and also the decreased number of slots," Megerle said.
For students who do not make the team but still want to participate in the marathon, there are a few other options. Students can also train and run the marathon with the team as an unofficial runner, Megerle explained.
"You still can run the marathon as an unofficial … which means you train with us, you do everything we do, you wear our team singlet," he said. "You just won't have an official number, and your place in the start of the marathon takes place way at the end."
Megerle added that a dozen or so students participated unofficially last year, and he anticipates 15 or 20 doing so this year.
"I think that's definitely something I would consider if I didn't get a number," senior Sally Ehrlich said. "It is a great group of people and I think finishing senior year by running my first marathon as a Bostoner would be great, even if I wasn't officially on the team."
Ehrlich also said she would consider running the marathon for one of many charities that take part in the Marathon every year which allowing runners to participate without a qualifying time.
"I may look to run it through a different charity, but you have to raise a lot more money for those, so I think I'll play it by ear," she said.
Going forward, Megerle is unsure if TMT will continue once the partnership contract expires in 2015.
"I hope they continue it but I don't know. There's no reassurance from John Hancock that they will," he said. "If [University President Anthony] Monaco went to the head of John Hancock now and said, ‘Let's rekindle this contract for 10 years of 200 numbers a year,' they would never do it."
