• Which direction, though •
[1 MIN READ]
As marathon training season gets underway for the 2025 Philadelphia race, I’ve been developing my usual seat-of-the pants routine. I used to follow one, really, but I’ve gotten kind of nonchalant in recent years. That’s worked fine as my running has continued improving over the decade or so of my “career.” But with community becoming my priority over competition, my pace has changed.
My not-so-secret goal is a Boston Marathon qualifying time (BQ) of 3:50. For context, I’ve exceeded the necessary pace 6 times over 14 attempts during the 2016-2021 period. My PR (personal record) of 3:39:35 happened in 2021 and was 4½ minutes off the BQ for that age group.
Now I’m in a new age group and a different frame of mind. I’m proud of my sub-4:00 time (by 3 seconds) this last spring, but running a BQ is a ways off from that.
Still, I’ve dropped times by the necessary amount several times from one race to the next. Most recently, in 2021, I dropped 19 minutes. The key was twice weekly speed workouts, weight training, and motivation. Can I achieve that? Sure. I just have to manage my expectations for socializing and time investment. All that running eats into life.
Here’s the secret training strategy: mobilize the speed aspirations of other rudder bunnies (Wikipedia). Come on, running community members! Or I can change my race expectations.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe), “Negative split or positive splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Likeness used with permission. ¶Text and photos (unless otherwise stated): Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-posted: (1) Facebook JRC Growlers Group Run (2025’07’30’W Run Message), (2) GGR email list, (3) Cerebruns by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Cerebrun with added caption.
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