Expo, schedule and race morning

Packet pickup

• Friday, April 17 (2026 dates): 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
• Saturday, April 18 (2026 dates): 9:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
• Sunday, April 19 (2026 dates): 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

• There is no race-morning bib pickup. The expo is the only window, and it shuts at 6:00 p.m. the day before the marathon. If your flight lands Sunday evening you have no bib.
• Nobody can collect your bib for you. The B.A.A. states plainly that every participant must claim their own number, and a bib worn by anyone other than the registered athlete is a disqualification offense.
• Bring a government-issued photo ID. Photocopies and phone photos of an ID are not accepted, only the physical document.
• The B.A.A. emails a digital number pick-up pass ahead of the expo, with a reprint link released closer to race day. Save it offline before you fly rather than digging through email in a crowded hall with no signal.
• There is no packet-mailing option. The bib exists at the Hynes and nowhere else.
• The expo is free and open to the public, so the halls fill with non-runners. Friday morning and mid-day Saturday are the thinnest windows; Sunday afternoon is the worst.
• The B.A.A. notes expo hours are subject to change, so re-check the week of the race.
• Don't post a close-up photo of your bib before race day. The B.A.A. disqualifies both the person who duplicates a number and the person whose number got duplicated.
• Fill in the emergency contact details on the back of the bib at the expo while you're still sitting down.
• The Hynes sits directly on the finish-line block, so expo trips double as a course recon of the last quarter mile.

August 2026

The published weekend schedule

The single hardest constraint of the weekend is that bib pickup is expo-only, in person, with a physical photo ID, and the doors close at 6:00 p.m. Sunday. Build the whole trip around that. The second is race morning: the bus loading window is assigned by bib range, the last bus off Charles Street leaves at 9:30 a.m., and from the Athletes' Village at Hopkinton Middle/High School it is still a 0.7-mile walk to the start corrals, so budget the walk on top of the ride. Gear check closes at 9:15 a.m., before the earliest wave even starts, so anything you want back has to be dropped before you board. Wave changes are one-directional: you may move to a later wave or corral, never an earlier one, and jumping forward risks disqualification. Pregnancy and postpartum deferrals must be filed with physician documentation no later than 14 days before race day. Finishers after 5:30 p.m. still get a medal but are not scored as official finishers. Dates and event times above are the most recently published (April 2026) pattern for a Monday-Patriots' Day race; the 2027 marathon is Monday, April 19, 2027, with expo dates expected Friday April 16 through Sunday April 18 but not yet confirmed by the B.A.A.

Getting there

Race morning is a one-way problem: you have to be on Charles Street, between the Public Garden and Boston Common, in time for your wave's bus, and the last bus leaves the Common at 9:30 a.m. with no exceptions. From a Copley-area hotel that is a walk of roughly 20 to 25 minutes, and walking is the most reliable option because it depends on nothing. If you use the T, the important detail is that Copley Station is closed the entire day, so your Green Line options near the finish are Back Bay (Orange Line, one block off Copley Square) and Hynes Convention Center. Buses run but are detoured off Boylston Street entirely; the Boylston at Dartmouth stop is out of service for over two weeks around the race, the Clarendon Street fallback stop closes at 3 p.m. the Friday before, and routes 501 and 504 skip Copley Square. Bikes, including folding bikes, are banned on the subway on marathon day, so a bike is not a backup plan.

• Charles Street bus loading, Boston Common. Official B.A.A. buses to Hopkinton load on Charles Street between the Public Garden and Boston Common. Loading opens by wave: 6:45 a.m. for Wave 1, 7:30 a.m. for Waves 2 and 3, 8:00 a.m. for Waves 4 and 5, and 9:00 a.m. for Wave 6. The last bus leaves at 9:30 a.m. Go one loading window early rather than late; the ride out plus the 0.7-mile walk from Athletes' Village to the start line eats more time than people expect.
• Copley (closed race day). Copley Station is closed for the entire day. Any plan that routes you through Copley on Monday needs to be rewritten before you leave the hotel. It is fine for the days around the race, when it is the closest stop to the finish-line hotels.
• Back Bay. Back Bay is your practical Monday station, on the Orange Line and the commuter rail, one block south of the finish area. It is also where the Framingham/Worcester Line trains come in, which matters if you are staying west of the city or want to get out to the course. Note that buses will not stop at Back Bay on race day; the station itself is the useful part.
• Hynes Convention Center. Green Line stop at the west end of Back Bay, useful for reaching the Hereford and Boylston corner and for getting home if the crowd around Copley is impassable. Green Line stations further out on the C branch at South Street, Kent Street and Saint Mary's Street close from roughly 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., so do not plan a mid-race hop to those.
• Prudential Center Garage and Copley Place Garage. These are the two garages the B.A.A. points drivers toward, along with 100 Clarendon. Boston Common Garage closes Monday morning, so do not aim for it. Park by Sunday afternoon and leave the car parked. Every affected street is posted with No Parking / Tow Zone signs, no-stopping restrictions cover roughly fifty streets in and around Back Bay, and a car left on the street will be towed rather than ticketed.
• Getting back to your room after finishing. You walk. Boston roads on the route stay closed until 7 p.m., so there is no car, taxi, or rideshare that reaches the finish blocks. From the chute you continue west along Boylston, collect your gear bag at Boylston and Berkeley, and find your people at the Family Meeting Area on Stuart Street between Berkeley and Clarendon, where the signage is alphabetical. The B.A.A. warns that getting from the finish to that meeting area takes considerable time. This is the single strongest argument for the Copley-adjacent hotels: a four-to-six minute walk is survivable, a mile is not.

Parking near the course endpoints

These are mapped garages near the course, not a promise of race-day access. Check closures and pre-booking rules with the organizer.

• Prudential Center Parking Garage6 minute modeled walk to finish
• Hilton Parking Garage9 minute modeled walk to finish
• Hynes Auditorium Garage9 minute modeled walk to finish
• Motormart Garage10 minute modeled walk to finish
• Brimmer Street Parking Garage11 minute modeled walk to finish
• Haviland Street Garage12 minute modeled walk to finish
• Somerset Garage13 minute modeled walk to finish
• Westland Avenue Garage13 minute modeled walk to finish
• Tremont Street Garage14 minute modeled walk to finish
• Gainsborough Parking Garage15 minute modeled walk to finish

Published entry tiers

Checked 2026-08-26; fees and tiers can change.