What a crazy-ass journey!

Oh my gosh, today sucks.

Boston Athletic Association finally announced the 2019 Boston Marathon cut-off time for entry into the race.

4:52

You had to run 4:52 under your standard in order to gain acceptance into the race. Absolutely nuts!

Greg was 4:43 under his qualifying time. So he got the denial email. The disappointment we feel is hard to put into words.

Nine freaking seconds.

If you've followed my BQ journey, then you know that my husband was not a marathoner before I qualified. He enjoyed running, had raced shorter distances, and was quite talented, but wasn't planning on running a marathon any time soon.

When I qualified, he decided he wanted to run Boston with me. So he signed up for a race. I've blogged about it a few times:

My husband the marathoner

Go Time

Boston Bound times two

There was always the chance that the cutoff would be something massive this year, but we never fathomed it would be more than his cushion.

When I saw the Facebook post from the B.A.A. today, I was instantly devastated. He worked so hard and sacrificed so much to work towards this goal and he nailed it. He ran such an incredible race, fought for every single second, and earned that BQ. To have it not be quite good enough for entry is a really tough pill to swallow.

I am incredibly proud of him. He did this for me, to be able to experience a bucket list item with me, and wanted so badly to be there with me at the starting line and the finish line and every single step of the 26.2 miles in between. I can't even put into adequate words how I feel about him and what he did for me. He will always be a Boston Qualified marathoner!

I feel like I'm the luckiest wife in the world to be married to someone like him. And I am so heartbroken for both of us. I am still incredibly excited to run the Boston Marathon next year but I can't help but think that I will feel like something is missing.

I barely made it in, with only 15 seconds to spare over the cut-off. If I hadn't been able to speed up during mile 26 at my qualifying marathon (it was 17 seconds faster than mile 25), I would've been less than 4:52 under and out of luck.

I also can't help but thinking that the debacle of a short course in Mississippi in December is a true blessing in disguise. I blogged about that race here:

Disappointment and Learning to move on

Success

I would not have run a fast enough time in Mississippi if the course hadn't been short and disqualified. The best I could've done was a 3:50:45, only 4:15 under my standard. I summed it up in the January 17 post:

It's interesting to me to look back on the past 38 days and everything that's happened. I BQ'd on December 10, only to see that the course was short. My time would've been just under 3:51 had the course been accurate. I had to recover fast and smart and try not to lose too much fitness over the next five weeks so I could do it again. I BQ'd again, this time by more than the 4:00 minute buffer I would've had in Mississippi. I think that's a really big positive to take out of this. I had a better finish time in Louisiana, so I have to see that as a silver lining to the stress from the last five weeks. Had my BQ counted in Mississippi, I doubt I would've raced as hard in Louisiana, and quite possibly would've only run the half marathon. 

I probably wouldn't have run a 3:49 in Louisiana and would not be running the 2019 Boston Marathon. 

The short course in Mississippi was a GOOD thing for me....who would've thought that at the time?

But in the meantime, the Hahn house is a sad and disappointed house. We are not angry. There's absolutely nothing that could have been done or anything that we could've controlled to have a different outcome. My husband raced as hard as he could and left everything on the course. There just happened to be a massive interest in the Boston Marathon and an impressive number of fast Boston Qualifiers out there this year. They only took 220 applicants out of more than 7600 who applied with less than a 5 minute cushion. 2.8% is all they could take! They had a record number of applicants, at over 30,000.

I would still love to run a marathon with my husband. He has no desire to try to qualify again. With the new standards, he needs to be even faster and I can totally understand not wanting to put himself through that. There are other races out there and perhaps we will find one that is meaningful for both of us.

Damn, I love that man.