I had previously decided not to submit my BQ time for the Boston Marathon… arrogantly believing that I even stood a chance to get in.
The Boston Athletic Association just released the details of the submissions and they are… humbling to say the least. You needed to run 4 minutes and 58 seconds FASTER than the qualifying time to get in. I did not do that in the last year.
Runners World did a chart breakdown of the last few years differentials between qualifying time and actual needed time to get in.
The variance this year was so great that the BAA has revised the qualifying times for 2020 and beyond. They’ve shaved another 5 minutes for each age bracket BQ which means at a minimum I’d need to run a 3:10 to get a BQ from here on out. And that… is unlikely. My PR is 3:02:25 but that was a long, long time ago… and my average times keep creeping up.
They say the sun never sets on a legend… but it certainly sets on a mortal.
And today I was reminded once again how merely mortal I am.