BQ

Mom called this morning. She mentioned that she burned 1300 calories in her run this morning. That's quite a few, so I asked how far she ran. 14 miles. 

That got me thinking about the half marathon we're running together next November. And how since my 101 list doesn't need to be completed until December 2013, it might be possible to complete a full marathon as well. 

So I started looking up different marathons that looked interesting, and kept seeing the terms PR and BQ pop up in comments. Obviously I'm familiar with a PR, but BQ was a new one for me. I thought it was some sort of qualification, but wasn't sure. More research commenced!

What I found really surprised me. The Boston Marathon is the oldest marathon in the country, which I knew. You also have to qualify, which I also knew, but I wasn't sure what their requirements were. 

If you are a woman under 40, you have to run a 8:20 mile and maintain that pace for 26 miles. You have to complete a marathon in under 3:40:00 in order to qualify to even run Boston. HOLY COW. That's 7.2 MPH for 26 miles. I usually run at 6.5 - 6.7 MPH but I definitely can't maintain that pace for a single mile, let alone 26 of them. 

It also got me thinking about starting to train for our half! I'm super excited and I am actually surprised at how much I'm looking forward to running 13.1 miles with my mommy. You'd also best believe that after I finish that thing, I'm getting a 13.1 sticker and putting it on my back window. 

Time to finish my Innsbruck presentation! More tomorrow. :)