The big Wednesday news

Last October I ran the St George Marathon for the second time. (and never blogged about it. whoops.)
It was the perfect day to run a marathon.
Unlike the first time I ran St George when it was pretty darn warm, last year it was freezing at the start. Literally. It was right about 30 degrees.  Sitting in sweats and wrapped up in a foil blanket next to a fire and snuggled up next to Aaron, I was still cold!

Though all that time sitting there waiting for the start was pretty uncomfortable, it made for nice cool weather for the next few hours, and an amazing race.
A race that landed me a new marathon PR by over 20 minutes, and a Boston Qualifying time of 3:38:47. I just squeaked under the cutoff of 3:40 for my age group. But considering that a couple of years ago I truly never thought I would ever run that fast, it was pretty dang thrilling! Qualifying for Boston was really never on my radar until a matter of weeks before St George last year, and even then it wasn't something I was willing to really seriously consider.
Like not seriously considering it until near the end of the race when I realized that it could actually happen if I could just hold on to what I had going.

Last week I was able to apply for the Boston Marathon with all of the rest of the people who qualified by less than five minutes. I've been waiting for a week and a half to hear if I made it in, knowing nothing more than the fact that more people applied than there were available spots, and that last year if you didn't qualify by more than 1 minute and 38 seconds faster than your age group's qualifying cutoff, you didn't make it in.

Knowing that it would be announced today, and knowing that my friend Heidi qualified by over a minute more than I did, I was periodically checking the entrants list at the BAA website to see if *her* name was there. Because if she didn't make it after qualifying with 2+ minutes to spare, I definitely hadn't made it.
And then this afternoon, I found her name.
And braved searching for my own.

And I found it.

I'm in!

This lovely little email dropped into my inbox a short time later.

I'm going to Boston!!!
By 11 seconds, I'm going to Boston.
Wow.
They had about 2000 more people apply this year than they had spaces available, so those who qualified by over 1 minute and 2 seconds made the cutoff for available spaces.  I qualified by 1 minute and 13 seconds.  ELEVEN seconds cleared me.  Count out 11 seconds.  Over the course of a 3 1/2+ hour run, 11 seconds is a blip. 11 seconds is just a few steps of walking at an aid station. A bathroom stop would have been well over 11 seconds.  Stretching my calf for just a tiny bit longer around mile 18 would have stolen 11 seconds.  Letting my mental monkeys get the best of me in the last mile instead of pushing till the end would have killed those 11 seconds.

I'm excited.
I'm excited to do some base building over the next couple of months.  I'm excited to pick through training plans again and choose one to use for this next 26.2 experience.  I'm excited to sneak away for a few days with Aaron for this little adventure! I'm excited to (hopefully) meet up with a few online running friends who are also going to be there. I'm excited to experience first hand this epic race that I've watched from home for the past couple of years and cross that famous finish line!