Boston Virtual Marathon and Jimi Hendrix

There are six marathons that are considered the most important, the ones that every runner dedicated to this sport wants to run even once in his life: Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo and New York. For now, I have had the fortune to run Chicago and New York. Of the remaining four, there are three that I just need to save money and register to run it, but Boston is an unattainable dream.

The Boston Marathon is a demanding race in which you have to qualify with a specific time to register. The qualification times are adapted as age increases. For my age range, it is required to demonstrate a time of 3 hours and 25 minutes, which is almost an hour less than the time it currently takes me to run it. Due to the increase in the number of qualified runners, these times become even more demanding, that is, it is not enough to meet that minimum time, it is necessary to show that you are much faster. This table shows the qualification times according to age ranges.

Some speculative data based on this table:

• My best marathon I ran in the 40s, gives me the chances to qualify in the 60s. I ran the Disney marathon when I was 42 years old with a time of 3 hours 48 minutes. This time allow me to qualify in the range of 60 to 64 years.
• The time I finish a marathon today, allow me to qualify in the 70s. I ran my last marathon in 4 hours 32 minutes, this time allow me to qualify in the range of 70 to 74 years

This requirement in qualification time has made this marathon simply an unattainable dream ... until the pandemic came and changed everything. The coronavirus forced the organizers of the Boston Marathon to cancel it after 124 years of interrupted marathons.

If something positive brought the pandemic, it was that to celebrate 125 years of the Boston Marathon, the organizers decided to give the opportunity to anyone, regardless of age, or how long it takes to run it, to register, run it virtually and receive this prestigious medal. It is a virtual marathon, not because you run it on a computer, as some believes, but because instead of running it through the streets of Boston, you run it from anywhere on the planet.

This is how, after training intensively for about six months, we ran the Boston virtual marathon in the company of a group of runners called MarathonFest. This video shows some memories of the training and the race

The music for the video is the fourth song from the B-side of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album called Gypsy Eyes. Happened to be that  the day I ran the virtual marathon, I did the presentation of this album at the Classic Album Saturday music sessions. Hendrix's short musical history is gripping. In just 4 years with three studio albums and one live album, this musical genius re-invented how to play the guitar. The mixture of Blues, Rock, Funk, psychedelia and a high dose of sound experimentation, make Electric Ladyland the album I like the most from him.

Boston Marathon and Hendrix's album

Some purist runners argue that we do not deserve to receive the Boston medal. That this race must continue to be exclusive to fast runners who manage to qualify. That the medal and the jacket must be won with a lot of effort and not with a virtual race. Even though I did not qualify for the in person race, I put in a lot of effort during six months of hard training and I ran the 26.2 miles to complete the official distance of a marathon. Without a doubt I deserve the medal and will proudly display it in my arrangements. of medals. Ironically, thanks to the pandemic I can happily say that I ran the famous and prestigious (virtual) Boston Marathon.