Boston Qualifier

I will never run a marathon, but can appreciate the dedication, will power and physical stamina required to run 26.2 miles. I was always happy running 3-4 miles. It was short enough of a workout to squeeze in before work or to endure during cold and dark Minnesota winters. Even when I didn't feel like running, which was sometimes often, I knew my favored loop - either around Lake of the Isles when I lived in Minneapolis, or by the mansions of Summit Avenue when I lived in St. Paul - would be over sooner than I thought. Yet, a couple of miles was long enough to get in a zone, but not to become bored. I still got my runner's high and those few miles kept me addicted to pounding the pavement, literally, day after day four seasons a year. All running at my embarrassingly-slow nine-minute mile (on my best days) pace.

With my humble place in the pursuit of running, I admire those who have run the crowning race in the sport. My husband, my dad, my Uncle Gary and my brother, Scott, can all call themselves marathon runners.

Three years ago, Chris and I stood on the edge of Summit Avenue at the 23-mile mark on a miserably muggy October afternoon and cheered on runners as we scanned the crowd looking for Scott, who'd end up coming along 45 minutes behind his personal record. Despite a disappointing finish in that race, Scott kept training and a few marathons later, he ran the Philadelphia Marathon, held today. With a time of 3:09:44, he qualified for Boston!

Yeah, Boston is kind of a big deal in the running world. It's the world's oldest annual marathon and you must run a qualifying time in a marathon in the previous 18 months to even be allowed to enter. For men in the 18-34 age group, that means running 3:10:59 or better, and for women, 3:40:59 or better. That means going out and running a mile in under seven minutes and 30 seconds, and then doing it again another 25 times.

Scott chased the crowd of people running with the 3:10 pacer the whole race, but as the pacers were at the front of the crowd of people making their way across the starting line, he knew that even if he was behind the official pacer, he had about a two-minute cushion between the pacer's time and his official chip time. He crossed the 25-mile mark in time to give allow him a "leisurely" last 1.2 miles. He slowed down to give his aching body a chance to catch a break, but when the finish line never appeared, he started to worry he'd allowed himself to slow down too much. He knew the story of the man from the documentary Spirit of the Marathon who missed qualifying for Boston by 11 seconds, and of a friend of mine who missed by a similar margin this fall in the Twin Cities Marathon. But he did make it, or I guess I wouldn't be writing this entry, right?

I'm incredibly proud of Scott and hope he's an inspiration for Oliver. Meanwhile, though, we're still trying to teach Oliver to walk or he's never going to learn to run.