I ran Boston in 1989 after running a qualifying time of 2:57(In the "old days" you needed a sub 3 time). My Boston time was 3:23 which wasn't too bad considering the hills got me. I finished my qualifying marathon here in Houston finishing 11th in my age group. The guy who beat me out of the 10th spot by a few seconds I met at the start of Boston. After achieving my goal to get to Boston I took 10 years off from marathons but have since run Austin twice and Houston once. I developed achilles tendinosis during training for Austin last year and got bronchitis three weeks before the Austin Marathon keeping me from my goal to get back to Boston, but this year I plan to be back with a vengeance. Glad to be a part of this group. Look forward to hearing everyone else's experiences.

Hey Jim,

Welcome to the group. All of you know my qualification from the group home page - whole 54 seconds to spare, not counting the :59 they give you over the official cutoff. I'm thinking about maybe running Houston next year, though I'm moving up to a 50-miler btw now and then (Le Grizz in Montana in Oct). Next marathon distance goal would be sub 3:00 as well (I've heard of that old open qualifying standard before, and it annoys me to no end that I wouldn't have made it to Boston if I had been born 15 or so years earlier - anybody here know why they lowered the standards to 3:10 and so on?)

Well, I ran Boston in 3:15, which I figure is roughly equivalent to a 3:05 on a flat course, so I think a sub 3 Houston should be a reasonable goal.

Keep us posted on your progress...

They extended the qualifying time as they got better organized to handle the larger field.

Good luck on the 50 miler.

I'm looking for a half iron man in October.


Jim