Marathon before marathon

Boston, New York City, and London require up to four hours outside waiting around in the Athletes’ Village before the marathon. Bring a garbage bag to sit upon and throwaway clothes to wear in the cold morning weather. Prior the marathon, you can set the clothes off to the side of the start corral, and they will be donated to charities. Also, bring some food and drink with you, since four hours is a long time to wait without any food.

Boston

The Boston Marathon, which began in 1897, is the world’s oldest continuously run marathon. It is arguably the most prestigious marathon, with a strict set of qualifying times earned in a previous marathon for most of its runners. Many marathoners dream of running Boston and train every day with the hope of qualifying.

The first time I ran the Boston Marathon, in 2011, was the last time a runner could simply go on the website and register on the day it opened for registration. When registration filled up in eight hours and three minutes on October 18, 2010,

Victah/www-PhotoRun.net

A When runners reach Boston’s iconic Citgo sign, there is only one more mile until the finish line.

for the 2011 marathon, the Boston Athletic Association decided to make changes in the registration process for the 2012 marathon—a rolling admission where the fastest runners (those with times at least 20 minutes faster than the qualifying times) could register first, then those with times 10 minutes faster, and so on. For the 2013 marathon, there was not only the rolling-admission process, but the qualifying times were all adjusted to be five minutes faster for all ages and both sexes. Check the website at www.baa.org for the new standards as well as for information on running for a charity, which is another option if a runner doesn’t qualify by time in a previous marathon.

Tokyo, London, and Berlin

The three international World Marathon Majors have lotteries for runners to gain admission as well as charities that accept runners who will raise the required amount of money. However, there is very limited space in the lotteries for runners not from the host country. Even runners from the host countries face stiff competition. For example, the Tokyo Marathon last year had more than 300,000 people try to gain entry for a race that had 34,796 finishers.

The best way for an American runner to gain guaranteed entry to the foreign majors is through an international travel partner. I got into Berlin, London, and Tokyo through Boston-based Marathon Tours & Travel. Marathon Tours will not only get a runner a bib but will provide a full-service marathon vacation, handling everything from making plane and hotel reservations to offering tours of each city and holding a welcome cocktail party for all runners and a pasta dinner the night before the race.

Marathon Tours’ Thom Gilligan understands marathoners and their needs. He has run the Boston Marathon 22 times and has a marathon PR of 2:30:42. “Marathoners are type A personalities who run,” Thom said. “They are not looking for a fun-in-the-sun vacation. They are traveling with a purpose. And there is no better way to see a city than to run 26.2 miles through its streets.”

Runners can bring nonrunning family and friends as their guests. And a marathoner traveling alone can cut costs by having Marathon Tours find a roommate. Thom Gilligan says that Marathon Tours gives people the opportunity to meet at the beginning of a trip. “We want them to meet like-minded people and make sure they don’t have to eat dinner alone. We do the research into each city so they don’t have to. Finding an Italian restaurant for the pasta dinner in Tokyo? We do that.”

Marathon Tours will give you guaranteed entry and air and hotel reservations to Berlin, London, and Tokyo as well as Chicago. Although it can’t give entry to NYC and Boston, it will also arrange hotel rooms and airfare to those cities. But as the majors are increasingly hard to get into, it is best to check the website at www.marathontours.com and sign up on the first day for entry. You should also

join its Seven Continents club for priority registration. The cost is $200, but it includes coupons worth $100 that can be used for future marathons.

The Tokyo Marathon’s tentative date is February 22, 2015; the next London Marathon is April 26, 2015; and the next Berlin Marathon is September 28, 2014. Check the international majors’ websites for more information: www.tokyo42195. org, www. virginmoneylondonmarathon.com, and www.bmw-berlin-marathon.com.

Course by course: what to expect

Each of the World Marathon Majors is well organized and fully supported, with water stops every two miles or so and numerous medical tents and porta-potties. Following are specifics for each race.

New York City

The 26.2-mile course will take you from Staten Island to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan—New York City’s five boroughs and varied ethnic neighborhoods. You will run over five bridges. After running across the Queensboro Bridge, you will hear a wall of sound—spectators screaming for you—that you will always remember. More than a hundred bands will play music, and 2 million spectators will cheer for you. This is not an easy course—it is deceptively hilly, not only the bridges but also Central Park—but it is all thrilling.

Barb Siegel, a runner from Chicago, ran New York in 2009. “I loved that you ran all the boroughs of New York and that you got to feel the vitality of the city.” Floridian Michelle Smurl, a first-time marathoner who ran the 2013 New York Marathon, said that the marathon lived up to her expectations. Even during the exit, “People continue to cheer you on and congratulate you for finishing. The crowds make you feel like a rock star: hill training. The bridges and inclines can take a toll on the legs. Run on tired legs

Michelle Smurl advises runners to “incorporate

during training to know your legs will still work toward the end of the marathon.”

Chicago

The Chicago Marathon is a fast city-loop race that has seen numerous marathon world records. Non-elites find it easy to qualify for Boston or to get a PR. If you stay in a hotel near the start, you can leave your hotel in the morning, and less than an hour later, you are running your race.

Sue Bellon, a St. Louis runner, said that the corral system at the start really worked. “There was not much bottleneck, and it kept the roads from overcrowding.” Even the finish was great—“big bags of ice handed out for our legs, and I had the best beer I ever tasted to enjoy while I iced and waited for my gear.’ Sue’s advice to runners is “it is an incredibly flat course, [so] watch your pacing for the first half so you don’t run out of gas at the end.”

© MarathonFoto.com

A Chicago’s fast, flat, and well-organized start is a runner’s dream.

Ilse Berube, a Florida runner, said, “The city went all out for the marathoners. The expo was awesome and the crowds were fantastic!”

Barb Siegel, who has run her hometown race eight times, says, “Keep your eyes open for all the interesting neighborhoods—from Little Italy where the theme from Rocky is blaring from the windows to the dancing dragon in Chinatown and the mariachi bands in Pilsen. Look for Elvis and his band and the cheerleaders in Boystown!”

Boston

The Boston Marathon starts in the town of Hopkinton and then runs through the towns of Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, and Brookline before arriving at the city limits of Boston. It is a point-to-point course that loses 459 feet in elevation, heads to the east, and frequently enjoys headwinds. For these two reasons, it is not a course on which world records can be set. However, when Tran Boston in 2011, with a 20 mph tail wind almost the entire way, Geoffrey Mutai ran what was called the world’s fastest marathon, 2:03:02.

For the qualifying runner, it is a 26.2-mile victory lap, with people screaming for you the entire time as if to congratulate you on your years of training to reach this moment. There are the Boston Red Sox fans, calling out the score of the baseball game that is going on at the same time as the marathon. There is the iconic Heartbreak Hill at mile 21. At the halfway point there are the coeds at