I’ve spent my lifetime of running without ever thinking of running the Boston Marathon. Karen and I visited Boston in late summer of 2023 and stayed at the Lenox Hotel with a window view of the marathon finish line on Boylston. Look at that view. It was enough to get me to start thinking of running Boston.

3 years later, I set a goal for myself at the start of the year to qualify for Boston. Suddenly, it meant something to me. If you read this blog, clearly I’m a marathon runner. The visit to Boston 3 years earlier, with the running through the Back Bay neighborhood and along the Charles River, visiting the Tracksmith mother store, all conspired to make Boston a meaningful milestone. Problem was, the qualifying standard was bit out of reach. Which to me, had all the feelings of a target goal.

I needed to run under 3 hours and 50 minutes. In reality, one has to run even faster, typically 5 to 10 minutes faster, to get accepted based on how they limit the number of runners. I was in decent running shape but weighed 185 pounds. I could run a marathon just at 4 hours. I scheduled 4 marathons for 2026, one each season, thinking that would give me a good progression toward my goal. And Karen began to monitor my diet. Miles alone wouldn’t get me there.

There wasn’t much training time to get ready for Austin in February and I ran heavy at 184 pounds and couldn’t break 4 hours. That motivated me to engage Karen on helping monitor my nutrition and diet. 500 miles later and 20 pounds less, I beat the qualifying standard by 19 minutes in May at the Colorado Marathon. Another 500 miles and another 5 pounds less in August, I beat the qualifying standard by 14 minutes in the heat of the summer.

Injury slowed down my miles and kept me from running the Boulder Marathon, but I didn’t need it. Over a thousand miles and a one paragraph email later, I’ve been accepted to run Boston next April. See you on Boylston.