Getting In · Iconic road race
Boston 2 Big Sur
Run Boston on Patriots' Day. Fly across the country. Thirteen days later, run Highway 1 from Big Sur to Carmel. One challenge, two of the best marathons in the country, and a guaranteed way into the harder of the two to enter.
- Distance
- 52.4 miAcross thirteen days
- Gap
- 13 days
- Field
- A few hundred
- Registration
- Opens mid-October
- Requirement
- Confirmed Boston entry
- Reward
- A separate B2B medal
B2B is the rare challenge that is genuinely more than the sum of its parts. Boston is a historic point-to-point through New England towns with two million people yelling. Big Sur is a closed highway with almost nobody on it and the Pacific below. Doing both in thirteen days is a legitimate physical challenge, but the real appeal is the contrast: you go from the loudest race in America to the quietest, in two weeks, and the second one asks your trashed quads to climb Hurricane Point.
There's also a strategic reason it exists on this list. B2B is the most dependable way to get a Big Sur bib, because it bypasses the drawing entirely.
How to get in
- Time qualifierHave a Boston entry first
B2B requires a confirmed Boston Marathon entry, whether qualified, charity, or invitational. Everything about the challenge assumes Boston is already solved, so this is really a Boston-entry problem with a Big Sur reward attached.
- LotteryRegister when B2B opens
Registration typically opens in mid-October for the following April, separately from Big Sur's own drawing. The field is small and it sells out, so treat opening day as the deadline.
Thirteen days is not very long
The gap is the whole challenge. Runners who treat Boston as a race and Big Sur as a celebration have a great two weeks. Runners who try to race both have a terrible second one.
- Boston's downhills are the problem. The first ten miles of Boston are net downhill and they shred quads. Those are exactly the muscles Big Sur needs.
- Do downhill-specific training. Eccentric loading in the twelve weeks beforehand is the single highest-return preparation for this challenge.
- Days 1-4: walk, spin, eat. Nothing else.
- Days 5-9: a few short easy runs to see what's still attached.
- Days 10-13: travel, adjust to Pacific time, sleep.
- Run Big Sur by effort. Aim for twenty to forty minutes slower than Boston and enjoy the view. Nobody has ever regretted running Big Sur slowly.
Questions runners actually ask
Do I need a Boston qualifying time for B2B?
You need a confirmed Boston Marathon entry, which can come from qualifying, a charity place, or an invitational bib. B2B itself does not impose an additional time standard.
When does B2B registration open?
Typically mid-October for the following April. The field is capped and it sells out, so register the day it opens.
Is B2B the easiest way into Big Sur?
For anyone already running Boston, yes. It sidesteps the Big Sur random drawing entirely.
Go to the source
Entry rules, dates, standards, fees, and odds change every single year, and the interesting races change them the most. Use this guide to build the plan; use the official site to confirm the details before you book anything.
If this is your kind of thing
Need the races in between? The hard part of a bucket list year is everything else on the calendar: the qualifier, the tune-up, the long run with a bib on.