{"id":16544,"date":"2012-04-16T11:32:08","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T15:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=16544"},"modified":"2020-02-27T16:40:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T21:40:53","slug":"boston-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/boston-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boston Marathon, and What It Takes to Get There"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, as you probably know, is Boston Marathon day.<\/p>\n

One year ago, I ran it<\/a>. It was amazing.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, I was eligible to run, but I didn’t because my son was born just two days before the race.<\/p>\n

And just two and a half years ago, I qualified<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Qualifying for Boston had been my goal since I signed up to run my very first marathon back in 2002, and brazenly wrote down “3:10:00” — the time I would need in order to qualify — as my projected finish time.<\/p>\n

Pretty good estimate … I was only off by an hour and 43 minutes. I should have known something was up when I lined up in the starting corral, just behind the elites, and surrounded by serious athletes with crazy calf muscles who were obviously in a different league than I was.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I know how inspired I used to feel on Patriots’ Day when I would see all the coverage of the marathon and envision myself one day running it, even when I wasn’t yet close to being fast enough. So I figured I’d post a few links and tips today, just in case you’re in the same boat I was.<\/p>\n

Where to start if you want to qualify for Boston<\/h2>\n

Qualifying for Boston: How I Did It<\/a> — I wrote this post just a few days after I qualified in October 2009. Reading it again now, I still believe that all the advice is valid; it’s a good snapshot of the things I was focusing on in my training when I was at my very fastest.<\/p>\n

But I also now see that this post was a little short-sighted. It focused on what I had done in the past few months, not over those seven years, which is the far more remarkable part of my story.<\/p>\n

So what if you’re not yet close?<\/h3>\n

Looking back at the whole thing, with the perspective that comes from being a few years removed from it, I can boil the long-term, big-picture approach down to three main points.<\/p>\n

1. Stop getting injured.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Easier said than done, I know.<\/p>\n

But of the 100-plus minutes I took off my marathon time to qualify for Boston, learning to train injury-free was responsible for about an hour and 10 minutes. Only the final half hour (yeah I know, “only” :)) came from advanced training, of which only the final 10 minutes was due to what I’d consider “intense” training.<\/p>\n

For me, eliminating injuries came as the result of just a few, simple techniques:<\/p>\n