2022 Boston Marathon prep begins

A day after the only fall race in the Boston Marathon’s 125-year history, organizers turned their attention to the 2022 event and whether to keep any of this year’s pandemic-inspired changes.

Complicating their planning: they have half the usual time to decide.

“I know we call it the 125th, but this one was like starting over again,” race director Dave McGillivray said on Tuesday, about 24 hours after Kenyans Benson Kipruto

and Diana Kipyogei broke the tape on Boylston Street. “Next year, who knows if we do anything like this?”

One decision that’s already been made: the race won’t immediately go back to the full, pre-pandemic field size of more than 30,000 when it returns to its traditional Patriots’ Day start on April 18, 2022. To allow for greater social distancing at the start and on the course, this year’s field was capped at about 18,000.

“If we can find somebody to tell me precisely what the public health situation will be, we’ll know what the field size will be,” Boston Athletic Association President Tom Grilk said.

Grilk said organizers haven’t decided whether to retain the rolling start, used for the first time this year, in which runners boarded scheduled buses in Boston and left Hopkinton as soon as they arrived instead of waiting around on the Town Green for hours for their wave to be called. The change was popular. But it also stretched the process for about an hour longer than the 50% larger field needed in 2019.

That required the eight cities and towns along the course to keep their roads closed — an added cost in services and convenience. A rolling start with a full, 30,000 person field would need even more time.

One change that’s not on the table: The race won’t be moving to October full-time, despite the perfect weather, the smooth execution and even the Red Sox obliging with a playoff victory later Monday night.

“It’s not a fall race,” Grilk said. “It just isn’t.”