Today is the most heralded marathon in the world – the 2026 Boston Marathon. This is the race that many runners aspire to run and have to run qualifying races to achieve a coveted entry (or they need to raise a lot of money for charity). So, how do you track and watch the 2026 Boston Marathon – particularly your favorite runners? Here you go!
How to Track and Watch the 2026 Boston Marathon
Here is how you can track your favorite 2026 Boston Marathon runners!
Link: Boston Marathon
If you are a marathoner – or even if not – you likely are interested in following along with some of the runners in the Boston Marathon today. In fact, you may have family running it or running group friends and want to keep track of them along the way. I can tell you that it is a huge mental bump for runners to know that friends, family, and others are following their progress throughout the race!
Here is a run-down on the schedule of events for the 2025 Boston Marathon:
- 9:06 a.m. ET — Wheelchair Division – Men’s Start
- 9:09 a.m. ET — Wheelchair Division – Women’s Start
- 9:30 a.m. ET — Handcycle & Duo Participants Start
- 9:37 a.m. ET — Professional Men’s Start
- 9:47 a.m. ET — Professional Women’s Start
- 9:50 a.m. ET — Para Athletics Division Start
- 10:00 a.m. ET — Wave 1
- 10:15 a.m ET – Wave 2
- 10:28 a.m. ET – Wave 3
- 10:41 a.m. ET – Wave 4
- 11:01 a.m. ET – Wave 5
- 11:21 a.m. ET – Wave 6
Track Runners in the 2026 Boston Marathon
The Boston Athletic Association has you covered when it comes to keeping an eye on either the elite runners or your friends and family that are running. They highly recommend you download the Boston Marathon app which will let you easily track your favorite runners. You can download it for iOS here and Android here.
You can also check right here on their webpage after the race kicks off (using the times above to get a sense of the tracking times – remember that the first checkpoint is at 5K and in 5K increments after that). On the page, if you scroll down, you can get access to the leaderboards for each of the 4 main categories of the marathon.
Watch the 2026 Boston Marathon
If you are in New England, you can catch all the action on WCVB. If you are outside their area of coverage, you can catch in on the ESPN2. They will broadcast it live channel from 9:00 a.m. ET until 12:30 p.m. ET. They will also be streaming it on ESPN+ from 4AM to 4PM
Weather for the 2026 Boston Marathon
Running a marathon in New England in April means you can face all kinds of weather! It has been very hot, very cold, very windy, and very rainy. For today, the weather forecast for the marathon is partly cloudy with a temperature of 41-50 degrees. The good part for the runners is going to be the tailwind that is around 10-13mph.
I know if this was me, I’m hoping for the clouds to hang around but temperatures of 50s sound really good to me! Plus, with an overcast sky, that could keep it from having to much of a beating sun.
The conditions are pretty good today with the low temperatures, low humidity, and a decent tailwind. Runners should expect the weather to work with them instead of against them today and we could see some pretty fast finish times.
Bottom Line
The Boston Marathon is a race that many if not most marathon runners dream of running. That is my dream as well and I have a marathon in two weeks that, if everything goes well, would allow me to qualify for next year’s Boston Marathon. But, with as many runners qualifying now as there are, I would likely need a decent buffer to the time which I am not getting this time around :). So, Boston will have to wait for me for another year!
But, this year, there are over 30,000 runners that did make it there and will be running it. So, watch it, track it, and cheer them on!
And, GOOD LUCK to all the 2026 Boston Marathon runners!
