Third Times a Charm

I am going to run the Boston Marathon again this year, for the third time in 4 years.  It should be a lot of fun.  My friend Gil Hannon qualified in the same race I did, the Fox Valley Marathon in St. Charles, IL.   Since we are both 50 years old, we thought we would need a 3:35 to qualify.  But because so many people get locked out, the BAA decided to make the qualifying times more stringent, starting in 2013- back to a 3:30, just like I needed when I was 45-49.  In the transition year -2012, the qualifying time was still 3:35, but the entrants would be rank-ordered by time so that a 3:29 would get in before 3:30 and 3:31 before a 3:32, etc until all the slots were filled.  So you could get a qualifying time and not get in.  So Gil and I decided to pace ourselves for a 3:30 time (about an an 8:00 minute per mile pace).  It was a great race, with a strong solid pace group.  It was cool, and started to rain at the end, and Gil finished in 3:29:57 and I was just behind him in 3:30:48.     As it turned out, the cutoff time for our age group was 3:33, so we made it with time to spare.
Of course, I used the F.I.R.S.T training program again, outlined in the book - "Run Less, Run Faster" .
And since I first qualified in the (spring) Green Bay Marathon with a 3:30:34, I have only gotten 14 seconds slower.  So that's pretty good for 3 and half years.