A major goal for marathoners is to “BQ”, that is, to run a Boston Qualifying time. I was fortunate enough to run a BQ time in my first attempt at the 26.2 distance. At that time, my qualifying time was 3:40:59 and I ran 3:38:39. For men 18-34, the qualifying time was 3:10:59.
I then ran the Boston marathon 4 times, in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009. By 2009, the novelty had worn off and I’m no longer terribly interested in running the race again. However, the qualifying time remains a good indicator.
In February 2011, the B.A.A. announced they would be tightening up the qualifying times. The new time for females 18-34 would be 3:35:00, and for males 18-34 it would go up to 3:05:00.
I know very well that non-runners often don’t have a good sense of really how fast these paces are. My cabbie to the Houston airport asked how I did, and when I said I’d done well, he asked if I’d managed to break 4 hours. For him, that was a great marathon time.
In trying to explain really how fast 3:09:52 was, I mentioned to a friend that “a year ago, that would have been a men’s BQ time”. Ugh, that year ago disclaimer weakened the message a bit.
And then this morning, I had a thought. I keep getting older….
And yes, sure enough, as I crest into a more mature age category, my time would even earn a dude a BQ for the 2013 race.
When I first started doing marathons, I remember saying to Andy that I wanted to run a men’s qualifying time. I’ve always felt the women’s times were a bit soft. How cool that even with their more rigid standards, I met that goal! I guess aging isn’t all that bad 
