Today, the Boston Athletic Association announced a staggered registration procedure for next year’s 2012 Boston Marathon. Qualified runners whose BQ is greater than or equal to 20 minutes faster than their qualifcation standard will be able to register as early as September 12th. Registration for those with exceeding their standard by 10 minutes or more will be able to register beginning September 14th, followed by those meeting qualifying standards by 5 minutes or more registering on September 16th. For those, like me, who have met their age/gender qualifying standard by < 5 minutes will not be able to register until September 19th – that is IF there are any spots left.
Um…yeah…so…uh…I guess I should feel even more grateful than I already was that I was able to get into this year’s race. I don’t mean to be a pessemist but with this new registration procedure (plus the fact that the race sold out in about 8 hours last year), I may never be able to toe-the-line in Hopkington again. It took me 8 years of marathoning at a rate of 1-3 marathons per year to finally do it – with only 68 seconds to spare.
On one hand, given the right mindset, I might use this new information as motivation to get my training right this time around. For truly I always pictured this experience to be a life-changing event: wonderful, magical, beyond my expectations. What I didn’t count on was for it to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. I mean, even if I wasn’t able to run a qualifying time ever again, I figured I’d at least be able to cash in on my carefully timed BQ race being within 18 months of not one, but TWO, Boston Marathons.
*sigh* Maybe that’s just greedy.