Five marathons to date, a personal best of 3:23:11, and a long-term target that hasn't moved: a Boston Qualifier — a 3:15 standard for my age group, but the cutoff means I really need about 3:09 to get in. A femur fracture in April 2026 reset the calendar. Recovery comes first; the 2026 marathons are targets that happen only if the leg is ready, not commitments.
The goal: a Boston Qualifier — and the real gap
Boston is the one marathon you have to earn. You qualify by running under your age-and-gender standard on a certified course, and then, because more people qualify than the race can hold, you have to beat that standard by a cushion. For the 2025 race the accepted field needed to be 6:51 under their time. So the real target isn't the standard. It's the standard plus a buffer.
For my age group, men 45-49, the published standard is 3:15. But meeting it isn't enough: Boston is oversubscribed, and after the cutoff the time you actually need to get in has run closer to 3:09. So 3:09 is the real number. My PR is 3:23:11, about eight minutes off the standard and around fourteen minutes off the time that reliably earns a place. That's not a tweak to pacing or a better course. It's a different level of runner, and getting there is a multi-year project, not a single race. Naming the gap honestly is the only way to close it.
Five marathons to here
Shanghai — December 2024 · 3:45:50
The first one, and the one that felt right. Shanghai is a flat, well-organised city marathon, and I ran it clean: even pacing, no walls, a finish that left me wanting the next one. 3:45:50 isn't fast, but it was the time of someone who'd found the distance. Everything after this was about getting faster.
Los Angeles — March 2025 · half only
The first lesson in what the body will and won't allow. I went into LA carrying an injury, made the call mid-build, and dropped to the half rather than break something on a marathon I had no business finishing. Not the day I wanted, but the right decision. A DNF you choose beats one the race chooses for you.
Metropolis (Fürth/Nürnberg) — June 2025 · 3:23:11 (PR)
My fastest marathon, and the one I think about most, because I left time on the course. Metropolis runs a narrow, looped circuit through the twin cities, shared with the half-marathon field. By the back half I was lapping slower full-distance runners and threading through half-marathoners on a track that never opened up. A lot of 3:23 was spent weaving instead of running.
A clean point-to-point course on a good day is a few minutes faster, but even that is still some way short of 3:09. Metropolis isn't proof the BQ is close; it's proof the trajectory is right. It's the floor I'm building up from, not the time I'm trying to repeat.
Berlin — September 2025 · 3:55:09
A World Marathon Major, run compromised. I came into Berlin carrying an injury again, and the finish line through the Brandenburg Gate came in at 3:55:09, well off Metropolis. Worth doing for the Major and the experience of that course; not a time that says anything about fitness. The honest read: I ran Berlin to finish Berlin, not to chase a clock.
Valencia — December 2025 · 3:51:01
My mother, Rose, passed away before Valencia. I ran it in a memorial shirt carrying her name — one of the world's fastest courses, run on a day when the time was never the point. 3:51:01, and the only number that mattered was the one on the shirt. Some marathons you run for a qualifier. This one I ran for her.
April 2026: the fracture that reset the calendar
On April 21, 2026 I crashed on a bike and fractured my right femur — a subtrochanteric break, fixed the same day with a titanium intramedullary nail. Return to running for that kind of fixation is a 3-5 month window, and a marathon sits a long way past first runs. Distance running is a late return-to-sport milestone, not an early one. The experts' sequence is heal, then walk, then jog, then build, with the marathon at the very end of that order if at all. The BQ project didn't end on April 21; it moved behind a recovery curve I don't control. The full medical timeline (surgery, weight-bearing milestones, return-to-running window) lives on the Road to Roth 2027 page, because the same femur is rebuilding for both the marathon and a first Ironman.
The comeback — if the leg allows
There are two marathons on the 2026 calendar. I'm signed up for both. Whether I run either depends on how the bone heals, and I'm holding them loosely:
- Amsterdam Marathon — October 2026. The hoped-for comeback and first real fitness check. The job, if I make the start line, isn't a time — it's to get back to a marathon healthy and read where the rebuild actually is. If the leg isn't ready, it doesn't happen, and that's fine.
- Valencia Marathon — December 2026. A fast, flat course where any honest progress toward 3:09 would show. But December is only eight months post-op, and a marathon is the last thing a recovering femur should be asked to do. This is an aspiration with an asterisk, not a plan.
The arc is simple even if the timeline isn't: five marathons taught the distance and set the floor at 3:23. The BQ at 3:09 is a long climb above that floor, and right now the first job isn't speed, it's bone. The races happen when the leg says so. Until then the target stays where it is, and the work is patience.
What's next on this page
This is the live record of the marathon side of the comeback. Updates land here as the rebuild progresses and the 2026 races either firm up or move; the recovery milestones that gate all of it are tracked on the Roth 2027 page. The next concrete data point isn't a finish time; it's the return to consistent running mileage.
More
- Marathon training hub — all five races and results
- Road to Roth 2027 — the recovery log
- Full Ironman training guide
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Boston Qualifier (BQ)?
A Boston Qualifier is a marathon finish under the Boston Athletic Association's standard for your age and gender, run on a certified course. Meeting the standard makes you eligible to register; it does not guarantee entry. Because Boston is oversubscribed, the B.A.A. applies a 'cutoff': in recent years runners have had to beat their standard by several minutes to be accepted (4:34 under for the 2026 race; 6:51 under for 2025, when 12,000+ qualifiers were turned away), so the real target is the standard plus a buffer.
What's the qualifying time you need?
The published standard for my age group (men 45-49) is 3:15. But meeting it isn't enough: Boston is oversubscribed, and after the cutoff the time you actually need to be accepted has run closer to 3:09. That's the number I'm chasing. My current PR is 3:23:11, so the honest gap is about eight minutes to the standard and around fourteen to the time that reliably earns a place. This isn't a tune-up; it's a multi-year project, and it now starts from behind a fracture recovery.
What's your current marathon PR?
3:23:11, set at the Metropolis Marathon (Fürth/Nürnberg) in June 2025, my fastest of five marathons so far. It was run on a narrow, looped course shared with the half-marathon field, so a good chunk of the back half went to weaving past slower runners I was lapping. A clean point-to-point course would have been a few minutes quicker, but even that day was well short of 3:09. The gap is real, and naming it is the point.
How does a femur fracture fit into a marathon comeback?
On April 21, 2026 I fractured my right femur in a cycling crash and had a titanium IM nail installed the same day. Return to running for that fixation is typically a 3-5 month window, and a marathon is a long way past first runs. Distance running is a late return-to-sport milestone, not an early one, so the whole BQ calendar now sits behind a recovery curve. The full medical log lives on the Road to Roth 2027 page.
Will you run Amsterdam and Valencia in 2026?
I'm signed up for both: Amsterdam in October 2026 and Valencia in December 2026. But whether I actually run them depends entirely on how recovery goes. Marathon running isn't the first exercise experts put you back on after a femur fracture, so these are targets contingent on a healthy leg, not fixed commitments. If the bone needs more time, the races move. The leg decides.
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