Ready to test your mettle against the highest and mightiest of marathons? April 16 is the date and the place is—of course—Boston. The annual gut-check may just be the most competitive ever. If you intend to run with the best, your times have got to be commensurately courageous. Eighteen- to 34-year-old male aspirants must have qualified at no more than three hours, 10 minutes. For women in the same age group, it’s three hours 40 minutes. The scale, of course, is gradated from there. Sixty- to 64-year-old women, for example can qualify at four hours, 30 minutes.
Compare those times with last year’s winner, who ran the race in an almost unimaginable 2:03:02.
Then there’s spectating, an admirable way to be part of the spectacle without spilling your blood, sweat and tears. There’s no better venue to people watch than the Boston Marathon, no greater regularly-scheduled crucible.
If Boston is the season’s biggie, there are other less celebrated (but maybe more scenic) marathons. One of the best is the Utah Valley Marathon, a shoe-pounding odyssey that plays out 45 miles south of Salt Lake City, within site of the wondrous Wasatch Mountains. If you run for the scenery, this is one contest you’d run barefoot for: cascading waterfalls, the Provo River, Utah Lake. Let them soothe your soul, if not the soles of your feet
The beauty of this beast is that it’s run for charity. Among the recipients: the Children with Cancer Christmas Foundation.
(Image: BAA; Video: Utah Valley Marathon)
