Runner's Words

Three years ago, I wrote this.

For a split second in my life, I decided that now I had completed my life’s ambition – running the London Marathon, for those at the back – the next thing I needed to achieve was, erm, five more marathons. Plus probably a load more marathons to try and qualify for the five. I never really stopped to think about the sheer ridiculousness of the challenge, not to mention the cost and logistical difficulty of actually trying to achieve it, but whatever hair-brained decision I’d made mattered little when two months after writing about it, we were all suddenly stuck indoors thanks to a global pandemic and even the 20 minute drive to my inlaws was off-limits, let alone flying to Tokyo or somewhere to run a marathon surrounded by thousands and thousands of people. Fair enough, I thought. It was a nice idea while it lasted.

While that dream kinda arrived, then kinda died, it had meant that I’d looked into those other five majors just a little bit more. I was still a member on various forums, Facebook groups and subreddits devoted to the subject, and one race always seemed to come up as the one in particular to aim for: Boston. It always seemed to be Boston this, Boston that. The oldest annual marathon in the entire world and one of many, many people’s running bucket lists, there was just something about it that kept drawing me in. Something that seemed to pique my interest above all others.

Was it the exclusivity, being pretty much only open to those who could qualify through pace alone, or could guarantee raising a five-figure sum for charity? Was it all the emotion surrounding the event following those tragic events of 2013? Was it the unusual, point-to-point course, basically just running 26.2 miles in a straight line? Was it the challenge of those legendary hills in the final few miles, including one reassuringly named “Heartbreak Hill”?  Or was it just the Boston Athletic Association’s unicorn logo, lending this hallowed race some sort of mythical status? I wasn’t sure but I decided it was the next one to have a crack at, that was if we’d ever be able to race in public again to enable me to have a chance at qualifying for it anyway. Let alone travel to the US and actually run the bloody thing if I somehow did it.

2020 rolled into 2021. I was running more than I ever had in my life solely by virtue of there being absolutely nothing else to do and I ended up going through a full marathon training cycle three times pretty much back to back as the Manchester Marathon got postponed again and again. As I started my third and thankfully final round of training for the same bloody race, I thought OK let’s go all in for this one and see where we end up. If I can run a PB here I might then qualify for something more exotic further afield. There was no way of knowing if what I’d be aiming for would actually be enough, as even running under the qualifying time doesn’t guarantee you entry, but I just concentrated on aiming for the sub-three marathon I’d always cherished, but never thought possible, and then somehow a perfect storm meant I went and bloody did it and the door was potentially ajar for Boston.

With the time now in the bank I realised I might have a chance and the excitement began to build. I still had no way of knowing if what I’d done would actually be enough, and thanks to the timings of the races and qualifying periods I had to wait nearly a year to even register my time, but the fact was that there was a chance. I begin to beat myself up looking at the previous years and realising I would have qualified for all of those and the excitement grew bigger still and when the 2022 edition came and went with there remarkably being no cutoff – meaning every single runner under the qualifying time had made it in – it became utter torture. Was this a good or bad thing for the 2023 edition? Could it mean that I was as good as in already? Or would it mean that more and more people would pile in entries thinking they had a chance, and that was on top of the an extra flood of runners backed up unable to enter during the worst of the pandemic? Had I already missed my chance? You just had to look at Tokyo with people queued up for years because of the backlog. Nevertheless I put my entry in and waited for the rejection.

A fortnight later and my entire world was turned upside down.

First the news from the BAA that, for the second year running, there was no cutoff, meaning I’d almost definitely qualified. After all that stress and effort aiming for the sub three, it turned out a 3:10 would have sufficed, which despite the exclusivity of the event is actually miles easier than New York (2:58), Berlin (2:45) and Tokyo (2:32). I’d run three marathons in my lifetime which would likely have been fast enough to get me into Boston 2023, even one of those which had nearly two minutes adding onto because some helmet couldn’t measure the course properly. Was this actually happening?

I still refused to believe it until officially confirmed, but then shortly after the news came the email. THE email. Was that unicorn in the header smiling at me? Someone was smiling at me. I was smiling at me. I was in the club. I had a golden ticket. No more marathons.

 

I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t really believe it to be honest, even all these weeks later. They published the entry list a fortnight or so ago and my name is right on there, along with Eliud Kipchoge and 29,998 others. My name is on the entry list for the 127th Boston Marathon. Achievement: unlocked.

Now all I have to do is run the bloody thing. Hilariously, I entered London as a Good For Age entry just as a backup and went and bloody got into that as well so now I actually have two golden tickets. No more marathons? How about two more marathons, a week apart. Or there were anyway, until I let the London entry lapse last Friday as the deadline to take up the place came and went.

I still feel a little sad at that but eyes on the bigger prize and all that. I’m not remotely up for marathons on successive weekends, and the logistics of them being over 3,000 miles apart made it even less doable. Still, it was hard to comprehend that I’d let a place go for the race that only five years ago was still my life’s ambition to run. This entire blog was formed back in 2011 basically on the premise of wanting to run the London Marathon. I spent years before I even became a runner wanting to run the London Marathon. I spent nearly a decade of trying to run the London Marathon. So many knockbacks, so many moved goalposts, so many near misses, so, so many rejections. And here, now, in 2022, I’d had one of those cherished places and I just let it disappear into the ether, as if it’d never even existed in the first place.

As I said though, bigger picture and all that. London? Completed it mate. Twice. The second time was where the immortal “no more marathons” words were uttered but here we are with at least one more marathon, and that’s off the back of the other two I’ve done since then. Deep down I’ll probably always be a marathon wanker in some form or other. After this one, will it be no more marathons? Almost definitely not. Will there be four more World Major Marathons? Probably not. Will it be at least some more marathons? More than likely. Run a fast enough time at Boston and I might even be able to qualify for Chicago and then onto the next one we go. Done, done and onto the next one.

I’m thinking well ahead of myself though, and to be honest I don’t want to put any sort of pressure on myself for Boston. Like London 2017, this is about the being there. Soaking it all in. Savouring being a part of one of the most famous races on Planet Earth. And in any case, after seeing what can happen with the weather it would be a real pain to set myself up to aim for a fast time and then be screwed over by a freezing cold headwind and torrential rain the entire way, or a 30 degree sweatfest, both of which possibilities seem just as likely as the other. No – this one is the victory lap. Manchester 2021 was the graft to get here, this is the reward. If running 26.2 miles can be seen as any sort of reward, but y’know. It’s the taking part that counts.

So that’s where we are at the end of 2022. I’ll close by wishing you all a very happy new year and thanks to all who have spent their time reading my little blog. We go into 2023 looking like it’s gonna be a marathon year. I’m chasing that unicorn.

 

Boston Marathon logo © Boston Athletic Association.