Local runners: MetroWest bibs

Hundreds of runners from MetroWest and Greater Milford now have bib numbers for the 2026 Boston Marathon, putting a large local contingent on the April 20 field. (metrowestdailynews.com) MetroWest Daily News published its local roundup on April 12, one week before Patriots’ Day, after the Boston Athletic Association had already posted bib numbers, corrals, and start times for registered runners in March. (metrowestdailynews.com) (baa.org) The race is the 130th Boston Marathon, scheduled for Monday, April 20, 2026, from Hopkinton to Boylston Street in Boston. The Boston Athletic Association said this year’s field includes 30,000 participants from more than 130 countries and all 50 states. (baa.org) (boston.com) A bib number means a runner is in the official field, with a wave and corral assignment that determines when they start. The Boston Athletic Association said 2026 will use a six-wave start, an update it announced with the bib release on March 16. (baa.org) That local list lands after Boston tightened its qualifying standards for the 2026 race. The Boston Athletic Association said the 2026 qualifying window ran from September 1, 2024, through September 12, 2025, and applicants had to meet age-group standards during that period. (baa.org) Race week is already shifting attention from registration to logistics. Boston Marathon organizers have published event schedules and race-week information as runners prepare for bib pickup, transportation to Hopkinton, and staggered starts on April 20. (baa.org) (boston.com) For MetroWest towns, that turns the marathon into a hometown event before the starting gun. The local roundup frames the field not as a few isolated qualifiers, but as a broad regional presence spread across communities west of Boston. (metrowestdailynews.com) The next marker is race day itself: Patriots’ Day, April 20, when those local bib numbers become a visible MetroWest turnout on the course from Hopkinton to Boston. (baa.org)