Best Marathons To Qualify For Boston

In order to give more information on races of many distances, I am having different races on different days of the week. Monday will be Marathon Monday. I will certainly cover marathons on other days of the week as well, but you can always count on finding out some information about marathons on Monday.

Marathon Monday: Best Marathons To Qualify For Boston

With the 2014 Boston Marathon underway, there are many runners who are watching it or following it and already thinking of the day that they can toe the line in Boston as well. Part of being able to achieve the qualifying time necessary is training, part of it is weather, part of it is good race strategy – and part of it can be the course that you choose for your qualifying race as well.

To some, it may sound like qualifying the easy way by choosing a fast course. But, a marathon time is a marathon time. The only time that a marathon time cannot be counted for something is for world records and Olympic qualifiers. Since none of us are in that category, we should not worry about running an easier course. The truth is, just because you are running a fast course does not mean that you are going to qualify. Even running a flat course can have its challenges. This is because a rolling course spreads the usage of muscles around instead of beating up on the same muscle group the entire course. You should choose a course that matches your strengths best so that you have the best chance to qualify. You don’t rule out using a particular pair of shoes because it reduces weight, do you? 🙂

Going through several sources, I have put together the list below. Many websites (like MarathonGuide) have assembled lists of the fastest courses based on the average time by runners within their Boston Qualifying standards. I have pulled some of these different races to give what I think may be a good list of where you might consider going to qualify for the 2015 Boston Marathon.

What Is The Boston Marathon Qualifying Time? 

Here is the table showing what your qualifying time would need to be. Remember, the registration period for Boston has been a wave registration by qualifying time. So, if you just qualify, you may very well not be accepted depending on the number of entrants. Also, you need to be at your time or under – getting your time + 59 seconds no longer works.

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Best Marathons to Qualify for Boston

Here is the list of some of the best marathons to use to qualify for Boston (in no particular order).

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There are others, but these are the ones I chose based on location, date, and amount of runners. In the coming weeks, I will highlight some of these and give the travel possibilities (airfare and hotel) to reach them. If your goal is to qualify for Boston, pick one of these races and start training! Remember, if you qualify after mid-September of this year, that will be good for running the 2016 Boston Marathon. This can be important – if your age in the 2016 Boston Marathon will put you in a different age category, your qualifying time for that marathon can be for your new age category!

Now, start training!