Boston Marathon Hugely Overrated, Reports Guy Who Has Tried and Failed Six Times to Qualify for Boston Marathon
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The Boston Marathon is “hugely overrated,” according to a local runner who has tried six times to qualify for the vaunted event without success.
“At the end of the day, it’s just another marathon,” Tom Joad, 39, told friends at a birthday dinner over the weekend. “Twenty-six point two miles, same as all the others.”
Joad, a father of two who has run at least six marathons with the publicly stated goal to run a “BQ,” or Boston Marathon qualifying time, but has never actually done so, went one step further during the dinner, telling friends that he no longer even really wanted to run Boston.
“For one thing, it’s overpriced,” he said, noting that he could run two or maybe even three smaller marathons for the price of one Boston entry. “And the weather is almost always awful—either blazing hot or freezing cold and wet.”
On top of that, Joad added, a Boston finisher’s medal doesn’t mean as much as it used to, because the event grants entries to thousands of charity runners who don’t have to meet the usual qualifying standards.
Joad concluded by challenging everyone at the table to “name one thing” that makes Boston worth the trouble and expense, then pronounced the world’s oldest annual marathon “basically a scam” and ordered a round of tequila shots for the table.
Reports that Joad was later seen Googling “Boston Marathon qualifying times” and “fast, flat fall marathon” could not be confirmed.
