The Boston Marathon is the most elite of all marathons in the world. It is the oldest consecutive running marathon. Starting back in 1897, the year after the first Olympic marathon was run, it has run every year since. Today, there are only two ways to get into the Boston Marathon: run for charity and raise a lot of money, or run another marathon in a fast enough time (Boston Qualifying time). All other marathons will take just about anyone who signs up. The more popular the race, the more common it is now to have a lottery system, which may mean you aren't guaranteed entry if you sign up. But Boston is the only one where you have to run a fast enough time at another race to get in.
For a woman who is under the age of 35, the time to beat was 3:35. I had to run a marathon faster than 3 hours and 35 minutes to get into Boston. Every five years, you get to add 5 minutes to the qualifying time. So, when I turned 35, my new qualifying time to beat was 3:40. This takes into account that most people run slower as they age.
On top of meeting the qualifying time, you also have to be faster than the other people who have done that and applied for the marathon. The Boston Marathon takes only 30,000 people. For the past two years, more than that amount have met the qualifying time and have applied to get in. Last year, the cut off was 1:02 faster than qualifying time. That means that if your qualifying time was 3:40, you had to have run a 3:38:98 or faster to be guaranteed entry.
This is not easy to do when your average marathon time is around 4 hours. My fastest marathon time was 3:48 prior to my Boston Qualifying (BQ) race in Kent, WA in June of 2014. That meant that I had to better my time by about 10 minutes - not impossible, but very difficult. It took me 22 marathons to finally qualify.
For about 80% of the 21 marathons prior to my Boston Qualifying race, I was trying to get my BQ. Some of the races, I was just getting my feet wet. Some of them, I was running with others to help them achieve their goals. Some of them, I was trying to get back into running after having a baby. But for most of them, I was trying to qualify for Boston. Once you start running marathons, it becomes a bit of an obsession to qualify for Boston.
For years leading up to my BQ race, I would try to better my time. I added speed work into my training. I started running with people who are faster and better runners than I am. I trained harder, faster, better. I thought about getting a running coach to help me get to that Boston qualifying time. The night before some of my races, I would dream that I was crossing the finish line in my BQ time. I would wake up confident that I should go for it and try to get that BQ. And it never happened.
With a marathon, you can train well, and on marathon day, the littlest thing can make it all fall apart. At New Orleans, on a flat and fast course, I was so close, and then my GI tract kicked in and I had to hit the porta potty. During my Delaware race, I thought for sure I would get it. I was at mile 18, and on pace to easily get that BQ time. Then I broke my foot, and that time slowly slipped away. It seemed as if it would never happen. I am just not a fast runner.
The Lord knew the desire of my heart, and he gave me the drive to not give up. He didn't give it to me right away. It was 22 marathons before I finally got it. For the first 21, his answer was Yes, but Not Yet.
In May of 2014, I was living a life of sin. There was this little sin that I had been holding on to. I didn't want to let it go. I knew I wasn't right to hold on to it, yet I had been. Early in May of 2014, I finally let it go and surrendered it to the Lord. I didn't really correlate finally getting my BQ with this moment of surrender until recently, but the timing won't let me deny it.
That month my training had been going well. I had been running more frequently and consistently with the guys at work, who were better and faster than I was. I had to run hard to keep up with them on those days. At least once, sometimes twice, a week I would run with them. Those runs became marathon-pace runs in my training plan.
The Thursday before my BQ race, I ran a 5k at work, and won it. I was first female to cross the finish line. That was the last run before the race on Saturday.
The Green River Marathon is a free race. The race director runs marathons, and was astonished at how much the cost of marathons had increased over the years. He decided to put on his own race for free. You could pay cost for the shirt, and water stops were set up along the way, but you didn't get a medal for finishing. The course was a Boston qualifying course, though, so I thought I'd check it out.
I flew to Seattle the evening of Thursday, after work. I stayed with a friend of mine. He rode his bike to work on Friday, so I could have the car. I drove to where the race organizer was meeting for lunch, a nice Italian restaurant, to pick up my shirt. After I got back, I went for a walk around the neighborhood to the lake. I had my traditional IHOP dinner the night before the race.
The morning of the race, the weather was perfect. One thing that can make or break your race is the weather, and that is something that you absolutely can't control. The weather was cool with very low humidity. It was perfect for running. Only God could make such a perfect day.
Many of the races that I had run before were "lost" due to bathroom breaks. I would be on track to BQ, and then my GI tract would kick in, and porta potties were all I could think about. The Green River Marathon was mostly along a bike trail. Seattle has a lot of bike trails and parks, and I figured that there would be park-like bathrooms along the way. I was wrong. The option to stop wasn't available. If it had been, I definitely would have stopped around mile 24, and then my time would have suffered. As it was, I had to gut it out, hoping I could make it to the end. If I had stopped, the break would have cost me possibly 5 minutes. Those 5 minutes would have also cost me my BQ time. Again, God knows what I needed, and a bathroom was not it.
The course is another thing that can make or break a race. The Green River Marathon course was the perfect mix of flats and hills to keep my muscles from getting over taxed.
The last thing I can attribute my BQ to was electronics and mile markers. The Green River Marathon actually doesn't have any mile markers. Most of the race, I had no idea what mile I was on. For the first two miles, I took it easy and stayed alongside other runners, talking to them as I warmed up. After about two miles (I can't be exact because there were no mile markers), I took off. Every mile after that, I ran them as if they were a real race. I essentially sprinted the next 22 miles. At mile 24, when I needed to use the bathroom, my pace slowed down slightly, but not enough to keep me from hitting the BQ. During those fast miles, all I thought about was that "today is race day. Race it!" and the fact that I wasn't going to be running another race for four months, so I better make the best of it.
All those factors came together to make it happen. God gave me the perfect day and the perfect course. I am not a fast runner, and I could not have done it on my own. If it weren't for Him, I never would have run the race I did. To God be all the glory.
I doubt I'll ever run another BQ race, but if God is gracious enough to let me do so, I'll be happy to take to the streets of Boston once again.
No comments:
Post a Comment