Laura's Downhill Battle for Boston

Laura made it very clear to me. She wants to run a Boston qualifier. For her that means a 3:38 which is a 7 minute PR. After having look at the options of Boston qualifying events when she was available it boiled down to San Diego and a smaller event, Mountains to Beach Marathon.

Unlike qualifying for the Olympic marathon there don't seem to be any elevation requirements to be an official Boston marathon qualifying race. Two popular Boston qualifying races are Steamboat (800ft negative elevation) and St. George (2600ft negative elevation) and they both qualify a high percentage of runners. So it seemed sensible to pick a race with gravity on your side. Mountain to Beach drops 786ft in total and according to the website has been rated by marathonguide.com as the 7th fastest courses to qualify for Boston. So that, combined with Laura's previous two marathon experiences and coastal climate will, we hope, have her running Boston in 2014!