The Smartest Race I Ever Ran

The Smartest Race I Ever Ran

or

Proof that Flynn will do anything for a Twinkie

by

Mark Jimenez

Earlier this year I had the great opportunity of running the Tokyo marathon at the end of February and the London marathon at the end of April. Two epic marathons halfway around the world from each other. It was an absolutely amazing experience.

There was a lot going on in my life during that time, and I didn’t have time to properly train for those marathons. I’m not the kind of guy who can globe trot around several different time zones and still run great marathons even with good training. I didn’t have good training.

2024 was the first year in a long time that I didn’t run a marathon. The last marathon I ran before Tokyo was the Chicago marathon in October of 2023. It was a great day. I ran the 2nd fastest marathon I had ever run and I loved the race. Even though my time in Chicago was good enough to get me into the 2025 Boston marathon I didn’t try to sign up or enter. Going to Boston is a huge undertaking, and I had already one in 2022 and 2023. I needed a year or two off.

But I had this itch.

2026 is the 130th running of the Boston Marathon. I don’t know why, but there is something specially about a year that ends in a zero. Mathematically it’s no different than any other year, but as humans we love seeing those zeros. I wanted to run the 2026 Boston Marathon.

Of course, that means I needed a qualifying time.

In order to run the 2026 Boston Marathon I needed a qualifying time BEFORE the first couple of weeks in September of 2025. It’s the way Boston works.

I knew I wasn’t going to get that time in Tokyo or London. I’m just not that guy. A BQ is a lot of work for me. I’ve run over 30 marathons and I’ve had 3 BQ’s. That 10% success rate doesn’t just happen.

With London being at the end of April, and me being almost 50 years old and needing time to recover, that meant I had to run a summer marathon, and that meant summer marathon training. So what did I do? I researched marathons that were in cooler climates in the summer.

What I found? The Jack and Jill marathon starting in Snoqualmie Pass, WA, and ending in North Bend, WA.

What did I do? I grabbed some of my best buddies and said, “hey guys, wanna run a marathon with me in the hopes of qualifying for Boston in 2026?”

Drew, Flynn, and Carl all said yes.

The mission – get four men ages 46 – 52 to qualify for Boston. Three men need to run sub 3:15, one man needs to run sub 3:20.

Take a moment to imagine a summer training montage. Throw in lots of sun, sun screen, and hydration. It was as amazing and also as miserable as you might think. But that’s not the focus of this blog.

The Boston Marathon recently changed their qualifying times… again. I remember when I first started running thinking something along the lines of, “gosh, if i can stay this fast as I get older I’ll be able to qualify for Boston.” Take a look at how Boston Marathon qualifying times have changed in the last several years.

Shoot, my qualifying times went from 3:20 to 3:15 just last year. Since 2011 the age 45-49 qualifying standard has dropped 15 minutes, from 3:30 – 3:15! That’s not insignificant!

After we signed up for the Jack and Jill marathon, Boston also made an announcement about a penalty for downhill races.

This means that we accidentally entered a sweet spot, one of the last downhill races to avoid the time penalty.

MY THOUGHTS ON DOWNHILL RACES

This is a tough one. 26.2 miles is 26.2 miles. It hurts. To more accurately describe my view on these races let me tell you a story. Once upon a time I had a great friend. We were best friends, we did everything together. We fell in love with running together and we started running marathons together. We had two trophies we would pass back and forth between us for who beat each other during the race. The winner would get the champ, and the loser would get the donkey.

I was the proud owner of The Champ when the military took my friend away from me by transferring him to the other side of the country. When they did that we started trading the trophy by whoever had a better PR. Neither of us were close to qualifying for Boston. Neither of us had run under 3:30 in a marathon before.

I had signed up for the inaugural Revel Mt. Charleston race and was training for that. I didn’t think my friend would claim a better PR than I had, but one day he sends me a screen shot of a race he did. Not only did he beat my time, he went under 3:30.

I was in a pickle. I thought I would beat his time at Revel, but it didn’t seem right. It wasn’t apples to apples. I knew that running Revel was like running off the side of a cliff. Running downhill gave me an advantage, and I anticipated my friend complaining that I hadn’t truly won The Champ by running downhill and losing over 5,000 ft over 26.2 miles. And to be honest I would agree with him.

So I desperately looked for a race I could do that was flat. I was much younger, and at the time I was working at Concordia University – Portland as a dissertation advisor. It just so happened that Concordia’s graduation was the week before the inaugural Revel Mt. Charleston race, and that same weekend, just south of Portland in Eugene, was the Eugene Marathon.

The Eugene Marathon was what I needed. I could run a time that my friend wouldn’t be able to say was artificial and keep The Champ.

I ran the Eugene Marathon and ran the best marathon time I had ever run, 3:25.

I got to keep The Champ

The Eugene Marathon was on a Sunday.

Revel Mt. Charleston was the following Saturday.

Not even a full week later I ran another marathon. I was still sore, there was no way my body had recovered.

I ran a 3:22.

And I couldn’t walk for a week afterwards.

When people asked me what my best marathon time is, I always gave them the Eugene time, not the Revel time.

It’s all about perspective.

Do I fault anybody for running those races? Heck no. See the above comment, 26.2 is 26.2, and the word “easy” doesn’t come along with “26.2”.

There is no doubt, however, that the downhill marathons, along with the things like super shoes, better science around running, and better training, have served to make the BQ times faster.

Which means I’ve had to run faster, dog-gone-it! And as I get older that gets a lot harder!

I’m not an early adopter. I didn’t wear super shoes until the Vaporfly 2. After Revel Mt. Charleston I did my best to keep to flat marathons. I did run the St. George marathon, which is net downhill, but not nearly as much as Revel. It also has a few wicket hills in it. Outside of that outlier, however, flat was the recipe for me.

3:08 at Surf City, 3:16 a year later in Surf City, and 3:09 in Chicago were all Boston Qualifiers for me at the time.

But now I needed a 3:15 to get to Boston.

I’m not an early adopter, and as soon as I wrapped my head around running a downhill course Boston decided to slap a penalty on downhill courses. But I got in during the golden time. One of the last downhill races without a penalty.

Next year Jack and Jill will qualify for the 5 minute penalty, as it has a net elevation loss of around 2,000 ft.

The Crew

Drew moved here from Madison a few years ago. Our Saturday long run, Pastries, Smiles, and Miles is Drew’s brainchild. When he moved here he met with me and suggested  a Saturday “long” run, longer than the weekday store run. Out of that came Pastries, Smiles, and Miles.

Drew had been running all his life. I don’t think Drew has ever run a marathon that wasn’t a Boston Qualifier, with the exception of maybe one Boston Marathon that turned into a party for him (you’ll have to ask him about that day, it’s his story to tell).

To me, there was no question Drew would qualify at Jack and Jill. However, any runner will tell you that it’s easier to run with friends than it is to run alone. Drew is also mentally tough. He’ll keep you going through those longer runs when the rest of us want to quit. Drew is very much the spirit and energy of the group.

I’ve written about Carl a few times. Carl who joined our running group in Covid, who is a teacher like I was, and like Flynn is. Carl who qualified for Boston in his first marathon, an October Surf City (Covid year, Surf City is usually February) that I fell apart in. That day everybody ran a good race but me. Carl is consistent. The dude is Mr. 3:14 – 3:22 no matter what. You’ve all seen my “Beat Carl” singlet. I made it one marathon and gave everybody in the group a “beat Carl” singlet, and gave Carl a “Carl” singlet. Carl has been there with me both times I ran Boston. I love the guy. He’s quiet, you won’t get much out of him (unless you give him the Queen of Spades when playing Hearts), but he is golden. I’m so glad he decided to join the group.

Then there is Flynn. The man I coached with for many years at Shadow Ridge. Together as coaches we won three state championships. We’ve run countess times together. I know all of his habits and quirks. Out of all of us, Flynn has run by far the fewest marathons. Only 2 before Jack and Jill.

Flynn has become my best friend over the years. I can’t imagine coaching without him. I was so scared to tell him that I was thinking about hanging it up. He was right there with me. I often joke that I’m ok going old and senile as long as Flynn is there to go old and senile with me. We’ll have races around the nursing home and play pranks on the other resident. They’ll be talking about us for years.

Because Flynn and I had given up our summers for every year we coached Cross Country, Flynn and his wife took the summer and headed to the UK for a couple of weeks. He ran, but he didn’t get his long runs in.

We had to bribe Flynn into running over 13 miles. His 3 longest runs of the training cycle? 14 miles, 18 miles, 15 miles.

Drew, the shoe-in for Boston.

Carl – Mr. Consistent.

Mark – can have a great race but is also by far the most likely to give up and have a crap day

Flynn – the one we were rooting for, but the one didn’t know would be capable of getting a BQ.

The Marathon

Jack and Jill follows an old railroad that was converted to a trail. The railroad had a very steady and gentle decline, and so the trail has a very steady and gentle decline.

On race day we arrived about 45 minutes early to find the parking lot full. We couldn’t find directions to the overflow parking, and as our anxiety grew over find a place to park, one of us (Flynn or Carl), remembered a small parking lot we had run by the day before. We found it, and lo and behold nobody else was there. It was only about 1/4 mile from the start and it had a bathroom.

We had our own private warm-up area and our own private bathroom.

Anxiety gone.

I did my little warm-up routine and I think we all used the bathroom about 3 times before we walked past the start line to hand off our drop bags and then back to the start. I was able to hug all my buddies (even Flynn who doesn’t want to be hugged) and then the gun went off and away we went.

RUNNING SMART

My race goal was to run 3:10. I needed a 3:15 to qualify for Boston, and a 3:10 would give me some breathing room. The race had a 3:10 pacer and a 3:20 pacer, but not a 3:15 pacer. When I got to the starting line I thought, “I’m going to run with this pace group as long as I can.”

The race is run on a crushed gravel course. I couldn’t decide which shoe I wanted to wear. I brought 3 pairs with me. I know, I have trouble making decisions. The choices were a Nike Vaporfly 3, an Asics Metaspeed Paris, and a New Balance Supercomp Elite v5. On race morning I just reached for the closet pair, the Nike. The bottom of the shoe has a little cut out showing the carbon plate. If you run in Vegas you know all about picking up rocks. I picked up a rock about 75 seconds into the race. I could feel it. I tried to kick it out but it wouldn’t come out. There was no way I was stopping. I carried that rock with me for 26 miles. Here it is still in my shoe at the finish line.

Shortly after the race starts, probably within 1/2 mile, you enter a tunnel that is over two miles long. It is so dark that you can only see a tiny pin prick of light at the other end when you enter the tunnel. The race instructions tell you to carry a light or headlamp, and I did. Still, the tunnel was not a fun experience for me. It isn’t very wide and there are puddles and water dripping from the top. Cold water from snow melt. You don’t have a whole lot of time to try to avoid puddles because it’s crowded in there. I had tiny little sense of panic a couple of times in the tunnel.

To keep my mind straight I decided to just focus on staying with the pacer through the tunnel.

Needless to say your GPS watch will lose reception in the tunnel. The technology is good enough these days that it can anticipate your pace as you run, and when you came out my watch actually adjusted its distance and pace for that point in the race, but I didn’t know it was going to do that.

I was running on feel.

Luckily I’ve been running on feel all summer long.

“This pacer is going way too fast,” I thought. Cue the flashbacks.

I’ve mentioned my 3 previous Boston Qualifying efforts. In each and every one I started fast and then slowed down.

3:08 – Surf City

3:16 – Surf City – the race I was most prepared for

3:09 – Chicago

In each of these races I started fast. The 3:16 in Surfy City was probably the race I was most prepared for. I had great training, but I freaked myself out by going way too fast at the start. I was with the 3:05 pace group but they came through the half marathon in sub 3 pace and I panicked and hit the brakes. What should have been my best time ever ended with me barely scraping through with a BQ.

I needed to run smart. I didn’t want another race where I used all my energy in the first half and then just hung on for dear life in the 2nd and hoped things worked out.

It’s funny how fast the mind can move.

As I’m running with the pacer who I’m sure is going faster than a 3:10 marathon pace I remembered an article I read recently about the 10-10-10 marathon method.

The strategy is simple, really. You break the race down into three parts. The first 10 miles, the second 10 miles, and then the final 10k. The 10-10-10 method acknowledges that too many marathoners start too fast. It actually encourages you to run a few seconds SLOWER than your goal pace for the first 10 miles. After mile 10 you pick up it up and run slightly faster than your goal pace. The last 10k is all heart.

“That’s it,” I thought. “I’ll stay with the pacer until we get out of the tunnel, then I’m conserving energy.”

The pace for a 3:10 marathon is about 7:15. The pace for a 3:15 marathon is about 7:26. I knew this, and I decided that after the tunnel, right around mile 3, I’d slow it down to a 7:26 pace.

We exited the tunnel, I dropped my light in the designated area, and I focused on running smooth and slowing down. Carl and the pace group pulled ahead of me, but the pace group never got out of sight. I turned my watch to “lap pace” and manually hit the lap button at each mile marker. This gave me a more accurate picture of my pace.

Even though I was deliberately trying to slow down, the gentle downhill made it hard. I focused on staying comfortable and not exerting myself. Still, most of my miles during this time were faster than the goal 7:26 pace.

*Ignore miles 1-3 here, through the tunnel GPS was not accurate*

I took a gel at mile 5 and two salt tabs at mile 6. To my surprise, Flynn caught and passed me around there. “I’m trying to slow down!” I said as he went by.

“I feel good, I’m going to ride this as long as I can,” he said to me. I watched him as he pulled ahead of me and caught the 3:10 pacer.

Running a marathon is as much, if not more, an exercise in mental toughness as it is in physical toughness. For me, if I look too far ahead I mess myself up. So I focused on just ticking off the miles one at a time. I told myself it’s just a 10 mile warmup. Any time I had a bad thought I just looked all around me at the beautiful scenery. It’s hard to feel bad when you’re running through the most amazing views of any marathon out there.

“Ok,” I told myself, “at mile 10 you go!”

And I went. I felt great at mile 10 and I started picking it up. I knocked off 4 consecutive miles in the high 6’s and several more in the low 7’s. I passed the 3:10 pacer. I passed Flynn. I caught up to Carl (who was now ahead of the 3:10 pacer) and passed him. One mile at a time. The challenge was to stay in the current mile and not look too far ahead.

By mile 15 I started to hurt. I was ready for it. I took a gel (a gel every 5 miles, and two salt tabs every mile after a gel). I had my mental game ready. “It’s supposed to hurt,” I told myself. “It hurts for everybody. If you slow down it will only hurt for longer.”

I kept pushing, one mile at a time.

By the time I got to mile 20 I knew I was going to get that BQ time. I was confident, and I channeled that confidence into running. The 3:10 pacer had caught me at that point and he was only running with one other person.

“Aren’t you going a little hot,” I asked him.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said.

I stayed with the 3:10 pacer through mile 22. It was nice to just hang onto somebody and not think about my pace. I let him do the work and I ran with him.

Around mile 22 you come off of the main trail and turn onto the Snoqualmie trail. There are two or three sharp turns in succession. My legs and hips weren’t ready for those, and I spent my time trying to stay upright, slowing me down a bit.

My pace didn’t recover after that, but I didn’t slow down too terribly much. Those last miles were the hardest mentally, though. When you are at mile 22 it’s hard not to think about mile 26, but for me thinking about mile 26 is a trap. When you are hurting 4 miles seems like it might as well be 100 miles. It’s a long distance.

I’m not sure why, but there were no mile markers after mile 22. That really messed with my mind. I was worried my GPS watch was inaccurate and I had a lot further to go than I really did.

“I should be hearing or seeing the finish line soon,” I thought.

“Don’t panic,” I replied (I’m very good at talking to myself. “26.2 is 26.2. Just stay in the moment, you’ll get there.”

And I did.

I turned the corner and saw the finish line.

I saw Drew cheering for me and I yelled “BQ baby!” to him as I went by.

And then it was over.

I put my hands on my hips and hobbled forward and grabbed my medal. Then I walked over and grabbed a bottle of water and a chocolate milk. I chugged the chocolate milk and kept an eye on the clock. I know Carl had to get in before 3:15 to qualify for Boston.

I started to try to go find Drew, but I wasn’t moving too quickly. I kept my eyes up and listened to the announcer. Every time somebody crossed with a BQ time the announcer said, “You just qualified for Boston!” I was hoping I’d hear that for Carl too.

When you run with somebody long enough you can recognize how they run before you can truly recognize the person. I saw Carl’s gait coming down the final stretch. I silently cheered him on. I got to the side of the chute and screamed at him to go. The silly guy had ear pods in and didn’t even hear me. He crossed the finish line and I heard the announcer say “Carl, you just qualified for Boston!”

Sweet! I hobbled over to Carl and we started chatting. I figured we’d have a while before Flynn came in.

Not to knock my friend Flynn, but his training wasn’t the greatest, and this was only his 3rd marathon. His previous two marathons were both over 4 hours. It was a massive change to get the sub 3:20 time he needed to get to Boston.

Carl and I weren’t talking long before he said, “Oh there’s Flynn.”

I thought he meant Flynn was running down the finishing chute. No, Flynn was standing next to us getting ready to grab a bottle of water.

“Flynn!” I yelled. What was your time?

“Um, like 3:17” he said (it was sub 3:17, 3:16 and change actually).

“Dude you did it!”

I can’t explain how happy this made me. Four of us set out with a goal to qualify for Boston. Four of us qualified. What an amazing trip. We were all so happy for and surprised by Flynn especially, for pulling of the race of the century.

We’re standing there talking and I’m just living in the moment, so happy for myself and my friends. Then I hear Flynn say, “Oh, there’s chips.” And he disappears.

When he comes back, he said, “there were Twinkies too.” The guy looked so happy holding his chips and Twinkie that I had to take a picture.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to run this race with my friends. I’m grateful to KJ for being an amazing partner and helping me through all the problems and issues that come up while running a small business. I’m grateful for this community.

Running allows us to have so many amazing opportunities. It’s never too late to start. Let’s go!

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Every Run is a Good Run