Competing at the Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon is on Monday and for runners it will be televised. The Boston Marathon has the most unique position. Of all the marathons it is the most famous marathon. If you can say that you have run Boston other runners know you are an established marathon runner. The reason for this status is that you have to run a qualifying time at an established AAU marathon the previous year. Originally in the 1960’s runners had to run the marathon in 4:00 hours. You have to realize during that time there was not the popularity of running that it is today. As the race became more popular the qualifying time dropped to 3:30 hours (8:00 minute pace). Over the years changes have been made to accommodate the increase in runners. And the year Katheryn Switzer ran as the officially registered first female the race had to add women’s qualifying times. Up until that year the Boston Marathon was for male runners only. Today almost half of the runners are female. My first marathon was the Houston Tenneco Marathon and my time was 3:45 hours. One of the first questions I had after the race was, “Are you going to run Boston?” Knowing that I would have to run over a minute faster per mile I never dreamed of running Boston. But after a few more marathons my times were around 3:20 hours. Now a 3:10 qualifying time was not that far off. I ran 10K races on Saturdays for a fast time and a long 20+ run on Sunday for training. A day of intervals on the track to get a faster time in the middle of the week was a regular schedule.

Times have varied over the years and often changed each year. For the ages 19 – 39 the qualifying time was 2:50 hours and for 40 and over it was 3:10 hours. For older ages it went from 3:20 to almost 4:00 hours for ages 60+ and 70+. The fact that a runner must meet the qualifying time to enter is one of the reasons for its recognition. I ran the Boston Marathon in 1982 after running a qualifying time in the Houston and Dallas Marathons in 3:04 hours. I ran the Boston Marathon after a lobster supper provided by my sister in Maine as a pre-race meal. Not the best pre-carbo- loading meal for a marathon. I was going to run for the enjoyment of the race being the Boston Marathon. The crowd was so large it took me almost 5 minutes just to get to the starting line. I was surprised at the number of “bandits” that are not officially entered and start at the end of the crowd just to say they ran Boston. I ran a 3:30 time and enjoyed the experience of running this famous race. Running by Wellesley College with the students lining both sides of the road and yelling encouragement to the runner makes it feel like you can float through that section of the race. They handed you a reflective blanket at the finish line to cover your shoulders to maintain body heat while you went to the finish area. After finishing the race runners go to a large area to retrieve their warm ups and bags with towels and stuff. The crowd was wall to wall runners and you had to squeeze through sweaty and tired runners to reach the table and show your race number to the volunteers helping with the race.

Organizers print booklets with the runner’s names for spectators. On the plane ride home another Boston Marathon runner stood up in the plane yelling in pain as he was trying to stretch out cramps in his legs. He said, “They wouldn’t let me walk. If I walked, the crowd would look up my name and tell me to keep running, ‘You didn’t come to the Boston Marathon to walk’.”

The Boston Marathon is a point to point race. The starting point is 26.2miles from the finish line. The one good point is that it is mostly a downhill route with the exception of the infamous ‘HeartBreak Hill’ about mile 24. It is a series of several small hills that after running 24 miles seem steeper than they really are. My sister took a photo of me going up those hills and at that point both my feet were on the ground. I wasn’t going very fast up those hills. I had to catch the plane ride home and didn’t bother to change out of my warm ups for the trip. I arrived back in San Antonio about 2:00 a.m. for the drive home. Tough day overall but it was a marathon to remember.

It has been over 40 years since I ran Boston but memories are still there and it is still a day in front of a television set to watch the race. The best part is when another runner asks, “Have you ever run the Boston Marathon?” I can answer them with “Yes, I have run the Boston Marathon.”