Run Luau Run

I think that BOS marathon registration just BQ’d…8h is a reasonable time for a 114 year old, right?

-Tweet by @petfxr

Only if the marathon is female.  It’s 7 1/2 [hours] for 114 yr old male

-Tweet by @LuckyRunner40

But age on race day is 115

-Tweet by @petfxr

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Last night…no, check that, yesterday afternoon registration for the 115th Boston Marathon closed – 8 hours after it had opened.  This was, by far, faster than last year’s record of several weeks, which had in turn shattered the previous record set the year before of a couple of months.  Yup, if you had managed to BQ in the last 12 month months, but didn’t have phone or internet access yesterday, you are out of luck.  True, you can run for a charity or get lucky like I did last year by having an Invitational Entry handed to you, but if you simply wanted to register, and you went to do it after work yesterday, it’s “Sorry Charlie.”

I was lucky.  I got through on the computer at around lunch time.  Next year, who knows if that will be early enough.

8 hours.

8 FRAKKING HOURS!!!

As excited as I am, I am now a little nervous.  Another Twitter friend (@edschober) had the wisdom to point out, “[I] Bet the qualifying times for 2012 #bostonmarathon will be adjusted down…or they’ll triple the entry fee.”  My sudden fear now is that after BQ’ing for 2011 and 2012, I may get UBQ’s (UnBostonQualified) for 2012.  I understand the reasoning.  Although Boston isn’t the sole reason people run marathons in the Fall, there is a large contingent of runners who work all Summer to run a marathon in the Fall with the hopes of qualifying for Boston in the Spring.  Boston closing in 8 hours eliminated many of the Fall marathons, including the biggest one, New York City, from that equation.

If the BAA (Boston Athletic Association) doesn’t lower the times, you can bet that early fall marathons like  Bay State and Smuttynose will continue to grow in popularity, possibly driving up prices across the board.  I don’t know what the answer is.  It probably makes more sense for the BAA to lower the time rather than raise the fees (though who knows, maybe they’ll do both).

One final thought – let’s stop bashing the charity runners for this.  They only make up 5% of the field AND they do a lot of good.  Quite honestly, Boston would have closed yesterday regardless of whether there were charity slots or not.

Bottom line is that in all likelihood, I am going to have to get faster…or older faster, and I think I’m okay with that…I just hope that if the BAA lowers the times, they keep it within striking distance.

UPDATED: One last “last thought” – if runners are going to get angry at other runners for Boston filling up so quickly, they should be looking at runners like me.  Last year I was lucky enough to land an Invitational Entry and this year I was fortunate to qualify by a mere 1:40.  Please leave the charity runners out of it.

Why do you run?

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