Imagine you’re at the Boston Marathon Expo. The topic of conversation among the group of runners turns to where you qualified. One person qualified at the LA Marathon, another at St. George and still another tells their story about their race at Rock ‘N’ Roll San Antonio.
Then all eyes turn to the one person who hasn’t shared their story yet. And their story just might be the very best of them all.
“Me? I qualified on October 8th in Kona, Hawaii,” they say.
“I didn’t know there was a Kona Marathon,” replies another.
“It wasn’t the Kona Marathon,” our hero continues. “I qualified at the Ironman Triathlon World Championship.”
“You what?”
“Yeah, I swam 2.4 miles and rode 112 miles in the world’s toughest one day event,” they continue. “Then I got off my bike in the early afternoon and started my marathon in the hottest part of the day, ran the marathon in 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity and my time qualified me for Boston.”
So how many people qualified for the Boston Marathon on October 8, 2016 you ask? Out of 2207 finishers in the race this year, 232 qualified.
That is called making a statement!
Here are the BQ Kona stats, courtesy of Sportstats:
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Bob I have been following you and reading your work for many years. You’ve inspired me and now that I’ve been coaching I have passed on quite a bit of your advice to new athletes to our sport triathlon. Your positive encourage flows through the words you write. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t think this list is complete. A friend who ran a 3:40:58 in 40-44 has a BQ requirement of 3:45. But, she didn’t end up in this list??
Is Kona the only Ironman event that is a BQ?