Name : Kevin B (Gville Kevin on RA)

Sex: M

Age (at the time of first BQ): 36

D.    Height: 6’1’’

Weight (at the time of first BQ): 160

At which marathon did you get your first BQ? What was your finishing time? Tell us a little about the race.

3:06:41 at 2012 Baystate Marathon in Lowell, MA…super flat double loop course known for high percentage of qualifiers.  This was my first-ish marathon…my actual first (and only other) was 12 years ago, long before I had any idea what I was doing, and basically run on the fumes of youth and ignorance. For this race, I wasn’t so much focused on the BQ, as on a specific goal time I thought my fitness warranted. Turns out I was somewhere in between the two. I ran spectacularly for 20 miles before every leg muscle simultaneously seized and I painfully dragged it home for the last 10K.

How long had you been running when you ran your first BQ? Did you run in college or high school?

Ran in fits and spurts from after college (1997) through 2009. I have run consistently since March 2010. Did not run in school, but played baseball for which we did a fair amount of conditioning (i.e. running).

What was your approximate lifetime mileage at the time of your first BQ?

Couldn’t guess at the pre 2010 stuff, but March 2010 to Oct 2012 was 4,300 miles or so.

How many miles did you run in the year before your first BQ?

In 12 months leading up to Baystate, I ran 2,300-ish miles.

Approximately how many races did you run in that year?

In 2012, ran 7 races (1 Half, 2 Miles, 4 5ks) before the marathon.

Did you follow a canned program? If so, which one? If not, can you give us an idea of what your training philosophy was?

I sort of followed a Pfitzinger 18/70 from “Advanced Marathoning”. By sort of, I mean I followed as best I could, but getting all the mid-week long runs in was tough, and there was a lot of shuffling stuff around for work travel, and the shorter races I like to do.

Did you run with a running club or utilize a coach?

No, pretty much all done in solitude, though not by choice. If there were a running club around me, I would be all over that, but I sort of live in the middle of nowhere.

Did cross training play a role in your training? If so, how?

Nope, no time for anything else but running.

Did speed work play a role or specific workouts play a role in your training? If so, how?

I’m definitely more of a fast twitch runner. My PRs degrade drastically as the distances increase. So for me, gearing up for a fastish marathon was more about getting the endurance part down with long runs, longer tempos, and just more miles in general. You could say with my crash at mile 20, I didn’t really accomplish the endurance part fully. I still have a lot to learn.

Any other thoughts you would like to share with those of working towards a BQ?

I took a pretty cautious approach to the marathon in general – what I mean is, I didn’t really go after the distance until I thought I had a deep base of miles, and had figured out racing shorter distances. So really it was two years of consistent running before I even set the marathon as a goal distance. And then it was 10 more months after that to run it. As I got more consistent in putting on my shoes and getting out the door, I got better. As I got better, I put in more miles. As I put in more miles, I got faster. As I got faster I started to believe in myself. As I believed in myself, I put in more miles, etc. etc. It’s not an original story. But it’s true.