Getting the results of the latest Boston Marathon convinced me that my son Ben, 37, now living in Albuquerque, who used to run track at Wagon Mound High School, had done all right in the popular race, finishing with a 3:32:47 time for the 26.2-mile event. He came out in the 8,528th place.
I’d been quite naive and uninformed about the marathon, believing that just about anybody with running shoes and an interest could simply show up at Bean Town, get in line and race away.
For the 27,487 entrants, rules for qualifying are complicated. Runners line up in “waves,” about 25 minutes apart. And surprising is that those who want to compete must first qualify.
Since that race, I’ve discovered that several people from Las Vegas have made at least one run.
There are probably a number of people who have been in that grand race; in a previous column, I invited such runners to get in touch with me so I could mention them, and a few did: Joseph McCaffrey, Karen Billingsley, Joe Whiteman.
Since the race is ancient, we’re writing about a huge event featuring athletes who may have even passed away before the current crop of racers was even born. I recall former Las Vegas pediatrician Ken Osgood as one who completed the race; some of the athletes may have moved away or otherwise been inaccessible. Names like Scott Darling and Mike Romero come to mind. Someone mentioned Steve Winston as a Boston Marathoner, but he called to say he hadn’t made it quite that far.
This column is still willing to highlight any who have been omitted. I’d like to hear from you.
Here are some of the comments submitted:
Joe Whiteman wrote, “Scott Darling, Mike Romero and I trained for and qualified and ran the 100th running, in 1996. We qualified in Sacramento … stayed at my sister’s in Boston and had a great event.”
Whiteman added, “Qualifying was a major issue. I missed the time by 1 minute 45 seconds in 1990 and made it with 20 seconds to spare in 1995, when I needed a 3:35 time.”
McCaffrey, who’s 78, first qualified for Boston on his 55th birthday. He said, “The race then was much, much smaller. … You knew a lot of your fellow runners and there was a lot of socializing while waiting.”
McCaffrey mentioned that on the 100th anniversary in 1996, “Boston went big time! The field increased by almost a factor of ten. You could no longer see the starting line because now you were on a side street. You had to walk for about nine minutes before you could finally start running.
Billingsley, who ran track as an undergraduate student at Highlands, tried the Boston Marathon only once, recording a 3:39:07 time. She described the marathon as “exhilarating, especially nearing Boston College … you could hear the cheers and screaming from far away. It just buoyed you up.”
To prepare, Karen trained in California and ran the California International Marathon with a 3:16:42 time, good enough for 39th place out of 436 women.” She said there were some 7,100 runners when she ran the 90th Boston Marathon in 1994.”
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One can’t refer to the Boston Marathon without thinking of Rosie Ruiz. Remember her? In 1980, she ran across the finish line as the apparent winner among women. But strangely, none of the cameras that filmed the event were able to locate Rosie. Well, she crossed the line (literally) by possibly hitching rides on subways and otherwise blending into the crowd.
That earned her a speedy disqualification.
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Here are a few mega-typos collected over the years. Did I ever mention having the most popular office door at Highlands? I’d post them — some came from the Optic — and in minutes, students and staff would come to my office to check out the postings, some of which are included here:
- You can see many exquisite statues walking around the museum.
- Important Notice: If you are one of hundreds of parachuting enthusiasts who bought our
- Easy Sky Diving book please make the following correction: On page 8, line 7, the words “state zip code” should have read “pull rip cord.”
- OK, ma’am, I’m going to give you a ballpoint figure.
- In a fast-food eatery: If your order is not satisfactory, please return the product to the counter and we will replace it with a smile.
- That guy’s out to butter his own nest.