Is It the Effort or the Result?

Human glory is in the striving.

Rhett Bratt
Runner's Life
4 min readOct 23, 2023

--

My man Dean suffers on a bench from which he cannot rise after turning in a Boston-qualifying time at the California International Marathon, December 2022 (photo by author)

Accomplishments are validating for sure, but results are regularly outside of our complete control, so it’s the honest effort that matters. We distinguish ourselves by tackling things that are hard; by our day-in, day-out commitment to our goals; by meeting and managing the obstacles and challenges we encounter along the way.

And when we fall short of the outcome we want, we can answer that we prepared as well as we could, and that the result went against us because of reasons outside ourselves.

Still, it’s cruel to toy with our sense of accomplishment.

Qualifying for the Boston Marathon took me five years of sustained effort. When I qualified I felt so many emotions: pride, gratitude, and relief foremost among them. I had similar feelings when I finished my first marathon. In both cases I realized that I had done something very, very hard, something relatively few people ever complete. I had dedicated myself to a task that took months to achieve — years in the case of the BQ — and I succeeded. And when I ran Boston in 2011 it was a victory lap of sorts, the capstone for all of that difficult investment, an amazing experience that gave me closure on that chapter of my life. (As a bonus, my presence in the field — albeit 90 minutes or so behind him — pushed Geoffrey Mutai to the Boston course record!)

My friend Boog — Dean to his non-high-school friends — qualified for the Boston Marathon last December. It took him five years that included a global pandemic, but at 62-years-old he comfortably met his qualifying time. I saw the same sense of pride in him that day. He waited in line for almost a half-hour to ring the Boston-Qualifying bell, a down-payment on his reward for the time and energy he invested in his journey.

Boog won’t get that reward, at least not this year.

Because of the “borderline immoral” selection process of the Boston Athletic Association (the words of Amby Burfoot, an honest broker in our running community), Boog will need to requalify with a faster time to actually run in the Boston Marathon without having to raise thousands of dollars for charity.

To recap, Boog met the standard set by the BAA to run the Boston Marathon, but he won’t get to have that experience because other runners ran faster relative to their qualifying times. To say my friend is bitter is something of an understatement. He and his wife were deep into planning their trip to Boston on marathon weekend to celebrate the long and demanding road that Boog successfully navigated. That trip may never happen now, and even though he feels the pride of his accomplishment, it rings a bit hollow since he’s been told the effort was for naught. The bar he cleared wasn’t really the bar, and he doesn’t know where the real bar is.

I can appreciate the issue BAA faces. An overabundance of interest is an enviable problem to be sure. And it guarantees a sold-out marathon every year. But there are other solutions that don’t feel so cruel.

I don’t have to live with the consequences of the decision, but if I could wave a wand and change the criteria for running Boston, it would be this:

  1. Priority goes to first-time qualifiers. The experience of running Boston for the first time is one of those bucket-list items for every one of the runners who meet their standard. If you’ve qualified at least once before, then you’ve had the chance to experience that event. The marginal utility of runners (I’m an economist — sue me) will be enhanced by letting new participants feel the magic of the Boston Marathon.
  2. After the first-time qualifiers have been accommodated, then BAA members should get their chance. Boston is their home race. Plus BAA will see a swell in its membership ranks when runners see they can get preference for the marathon.
  3. Finally, the current method of prioritizing faster runners relative to qualifying times can be applied against the remaining applicants. It’s not unreasonable to want faster runners rewarded, just not at the expense of people who have cleared the official bar for the first time and have dreams of participating in the race.

If BAA feels that including slower runners cheapens the race — even though they have met the race’s qualifying age-and-gender standards — then change the standards. Make it more challenging to qualify. Of course, that might mean years where the race doesn’t reach capacity. Or scrap the standards entirely and rank everyone by their fastest marathon time in the previous twelve months. Then you’re really getting the fastest field possible. We’ll see fewer older runners and women, but if speed really matters most, then be true to that principle.

It’s hard to imagine a more heartless process than the one BAA has chosen. It doesn’t really need to revisit it, of course, since BAA is basking in unprecedented demand, but hubris is a bad look wherever we see it. And it ultimately brings consequences.

Those who are striving deserve better.

--

--

Rhett Bratt
Runner's Life

I write, I read, I run (slowly), I throw mediocre pots. I do my best, but I fail regularly. Mostly I just try.