...the rest of the story (By Phil)

So here's the part she's not telling you...

All along we were being told that she was running the race just to see if she could still do it.  When I asked her what time the boys and I should be there, she said she was targeting 3 hours, 40 minutes.  But she said it with some indifference, the way she might announce what color dress she was planning on wearing to church this morning...

 

Race conditions were not ideal.  For those that don't know, in addition to running 26 miles for fun, these people get up at 4:00 AM to drive to the race site, clamber aboard buses and ride to the start line in the predawn darkness.  It rained from the time she left our house until we drove her home 7 hours later.  Between the concerns about her knee and the perpetual rain, I was very pleased when we looked up and saw her approaching, about 100 yards from the finish line.

 

She looked strong (very wet,...but strong).  I had looked at my watch and done the math and she was right about the time she had been targeting.  You can imagine my surprise as she got closer and I realized she was NOT happy.  She was as mad as I ever see her (which for the record, isn't all that upset for mortal people...but a lot for her).

 

 As all husbands know, when you see that your wife is upset, your first thought is:  "Oh no....what did I do?"  I did a quick mental audit and couldn't come up with anything.  (This certainly didn't mean I hadn't screwed up, it just lowered the odds a bit).

 

It wasn't until we caught up with her in the recovery area that I figured out what was going on.  That little stinker, who had developed an intricate plan on where and how I could pick her up half way through the race if her knee gave out and ran with a cell phone just in case...that little stinker had been trying to qualify for Boston again!!!

 

That line about, "Oh, I'm going to try and do it in 3:40..." just happened to reflect the qualifying time for the Boston Marathon.

 

And Jennie's final time was 3:40:45...forty-five seconds too slow!!!

 

  

And now for the rest, of the rest of the story....

  About three years ago, Jennie failed to qualify for Boston by a mere 18 seconds.  That was also when the knee troubles began.  Two years ago, the organizers of the Boston Marathon determined that they were turning away too many elite runners because they had reached capacity for the race.  To address the problem, they lowered the qualifying time for each gender/age category by 5 minutes and did away with the 59 second grace allowance that had been in affect (ie, if you were within 59 seconds of the cut off, you qualified).

 

Had they only done either one of those two changes, Jennie would have qualified.  Had they not lowered the qualifying time, she would have qualified with over 4 minutes to spare.  Had they kept the 59 second leeway, she would have qualified with 14 seconds to spare....in the rain, with a bad knee...

 

 

But as far as I'm concerned, she still an elite runner.
Let's look at the numbers, shall we:

She finished 427/2517...in the top 17% of every man, woman and college student who ran the race
She finished 120/1203...in the top 10% of the female runners
She finished 40/308...in the top 13% of the women in her age range

Sounds pretty elite to me.

But at least she has a story to tell.  How many people do you know who can say they missed qualifying for Boston by less than a minute...twice?

Oops...gotta go.  Jennie needs help getting down the stairs.