On the Road to Boston

It's game on! After several strong finishes in the last couple of months, I have officially decided to go after the infamous "BQ". Since the 2011 Boston is already closed, no need to worry about that one!

• A time of 3:35 in fall 2010 through 2011 qualifies for Boston 2012 (Age 54)
• A time of 3:45 in fall 2011 through 2012 qualifies for Boston 2013 (Age 55)

I have added the mantra at the top of my blog: "On the Road from New Orleans to Boston". My first marathon was in New Orleans just 10 months ago. At that time, a "BQ" was not even something that I was familiar with, much less interested in. A few months later, I decided that I did need a goal in order to have a purpose for a strong training program. Since the Boston Marathon was being run at that time, I decided that would be my goal! After a few months into it, the training seemed so hard and my warm weather race results were not supportive of that mission. I backed off the goal and felt a sub-4 marathon was more than enough to keep me motivated to train.

After an amazingly strong half marathon a couple months ago, I busted a sub-4 marathon wide open just a few weeks later. While I suspected that would be the end of marathon PRs until another year of training is completed, just this past weekend I hit a 3:45 finish time at Memphis! Wow, if I can do that next fall or winter, then I would be qualified for Boston 2013! So there is my goal! But wait.....is a 3:35 time possible before then while in my current age group? Maybe at New Orleans in February on a cool day and flat course? Haha...I seriously doubt I can knock off 10 minutes that quickly! But, let's just see how close I can get!

My 10 week two marathon training program posted on DailyMile earlier is set up to bring me a finish time in New Orleans under 3:45. If by some training miracle I manage a 3:35 finish, then I have BQ'd for 2012. If not, then surely I can qualify next fall/winter for either the 2012 or 2013 Boston Marathon.

So, there you have it....the goal is BQ...and the pathway is twofold. The road began at New Orleans and will hopefully end at Boston. If I can stay healthy, then I see a BQ qualifying time in the bag no later than 14 months from now (by Feb 2012). Oh....this whole scenario assumes the qualifying times do not change before then! Gasp!