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Originally Posted by Marcellus
Little Rock Marathon which is a really fun event but its fairly hilly on the back half. Not the ideal BQ course but I knew it well. I have run that event 3 times, I recommend it for a good time. Lots of spectators etc...Huge finishers metal and they know how to throw a party on the course.
I made the Boston cutoff by only 6 seconds.
You may or may not know this but running a BQ doesn't automatically get you in, it allows you to apply to enter, then they average out the times of all the entries under the BQ time that will get them the number they need for each age group. My qualifying time was almost 5 minutes faster than BQ but the entries were so fast that year the cutoff got moved another 4 min 54 seconds. I thought I was going to be automatic but barely squeezed in. The times have gotten so fast they recently bumped the age group BQ times 5 minutes just to apply so its just getting harder and harder.
Pretty wild 6 seconds over 26.2+ miles was the difference and there is a huge hill almost a half mile long at the start of mile 25 on the course. I easily could have lost another 6 seconds on that hill alone.
I'm not nearly as fast as I used to be and the qualifying times keep getting bumped up so its getting insane. I may give it another shot when I turn 55 in a few years as you get another 10 min at age 55.
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I've heard good things about that Little Rock marathon. Any BQ is impressive, but it's even more impressive on a tough course like that! I've thought about running Little Rock, because it's in a mild time of year, March, and it would be interesting to visit Arkansas.
I'm glad you beat the cutoff for the year you qualified!
There were a lot of disappointed runners this year because Boston had a 5:29 cutoff this year, even though they had a 0:00 cutoff in 2022 and 2023, due to COVID.