Boston Marathon unveils new registration process

B.A.A. TO OFFER FASTEST QUALIFIED RUNNERS

EARLY ACCEPTANCE INTO 2012 BOSTON MARATHON WITH NEW REGISTRATION PROCESS.

NEW QUALIFYING TIMES IN EFFECT FOR 2013 BOSTON MARATHON.

BOSTON – The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) announced today a change in its registration process for the Boston Marathon, allowing the fastest qualifiers to enter the earliest and with a rolling admission system while also offering all eligible runners an increased registration period. The changes in registration are a response by the B.A.A. to greater than ever demand by runners to gain entry into the Boston Marathon and culminate more than three months of analysis, including input from the running industry. Rather than accepting runners who have met the qualifying standards on a first come, first served approach, a more systematic, performance-based process will be employed.

2012 Boston Marathon

For the 2012 Boston Marathon, registration will extend for two weeks, beginning on Monday, September 12 and continuing until Friday, September 23. The qualifying times for the 2012 Boston Marathon will not change from recent past years since the standards had been previously announced and have been in effect since last September. However, the new registration process addresses the increased demand among qualified runners to participate in the Boston Marathon and will accommodate those who are the fastest qualifiers first.

Registration will occur on a “rolling admission” schedule until the maximum field size is reached, beginning with the fastest qualifiers. On the first day of registration for the 2012 Boston Marathon, those who are eligible for entry by having met the qualifying standards for their age and gender group by 20 minutes or more will be able to enter on the first day of registration (September 12). On the third day (September 14), registration will open for those who have met their qualifying standards by 10 minutes or more. On the fifth day (September 16), registration will open for those who have met their qualifying standards by five minutes or more. During this first week of registration, applicants will be notified as they are accepted and their qualifying performance verified.

If the field size is not reached after the first week and additional space remains, then registration will open to all qualifiers at the beginning of Week Two (September 19) and those who have met the qualifying standards by any amount of time will be able to apply for entry. The application process will remain open for the entire week, closing on September 23. At the conclusion of Week Two, those who are the fastest among the pool of applicants in their age and gender will be accepted. Accepted athletes will be notified on September 28.

If space remains available after this two week process, registration will remain open to any qualifier on a first come, first served basis until the maximum field size is reached.

The field size for the 2012 Boston Marathon will not represent a significant increase from the most recent past years.

Registration Process for the 2012 Boston Marathon

First Week Day 1 (Sept. 12) Qualifiers who have met their age/gender qualifying times by

20 minutes, 00 seconds or faster may apply

Day 3 (Sept. 14) 10 minutes, 00 seconds or faster

Day 5 (Sept. 16) 5 minutes, 00 seconds or faster

Second Week

Day 8 (Sept. 19) Qualifiers who have met their age/gender qualifying times by

any amount of time, including qualifiers who could have registered in Week One.

Day 12 (Sept. 23) Registration closes for qualified applicants

September 28 Qualifiers from entry during second week of registration are notified of their acceptance.

If the field is not filled at the conclusion of the two weeks, then registration will remain open and qualifiers will be accepted on a first come, first served basis until the maximum field size is reached.

2013 Boston Marathon

For the 2013 Boston Marathon, in addition to the new “rolling admission” process for registration which will be in effect for the 2012 Boston Marathon, the B.A.A. will adjust the qualifying times by lowering them by five minutes from the times which have been in effect in recent past years. The adjusted qualifying times will go into effect on September 24, 2011, and are as follows:

Age Group MEN WOMEN

18-34 3:05:00 3:35:00

35-39 3:10:00 3:40:00

40-44 3:15:00 3:45:00

45-49 3:25:00 3:55:00

50-54 3:30:00 4:00:00

55-59 3:40:00 4:10:00

60-64 3:55:00 4:25:00

65-69 4:10:00 4:40:00

70-74 4:25:00 4:55:00

75-79 4:40:00 5:10:00

80 and older 4:55:00 5:25:00

Registration for the 2013 Boston Marathon will begin on Monday, September 10, 2012.

“As the number of qualified runners has increased combined with greater demand to run the Boston Marathon, our new registration process enables those who qualify by the greatest amount of time to have the longest period to enter,” said Tom Grilk, B.A.A. Executive Director. “Our new registration process takes into consideration the many comments we received from runners this past fall and winter, most of whom urged the B.A.A. to institute a system which recognizes athletic performance above all else.”

Additionally, to recognize and to encourage longtime Boston Marathon entrants, the B.A.A. will allow those who have met the qualifying times and who have finished the last ten consecutive Boston Marathons to enter anytime during the registration period. Currently, there are approximately 500 runners who have run 10 or more consecutive Boston Marathons.

The B.A.A. last adjusted the qualifying times for the 2003 Boston Marathon, relaxing times for runners who were 55 years old and older. The last time the qualifying times were made more stringent was for the 1980 Boston Marathon.

The 2011 Boston Marathon reached its maximum field size of qualifiers faster than any previous year when qualifiers rushed to fill the race and the qualified field closed in eight hours, three minutes.

Believe it or not, I'm running without juggling

This will be my last post before running the Detroit Marathon as a pacer for the U.S. women's Olympic trials qualifying time of 2:47:00. Detroit will be my first non-joggling marathon is a few years and I'm really looking forward to being able to drink Gatorade without stopping.

I've been hired to run exact splits of 6:22 per mile for the whole race, clickity-click, and will be equipped with a Sprint cellphone GPS that will keep track of my time for each mile. I'll be a human metronome.

Today, I was flipping through a copy of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not book and came across a section that described my joggling duel against Zach Warren in the 2006 Boston Marathon. They spelled my first name wrong, but it's still pretty cool to be in the book.

Tour de France dog crash

I guess his front wheel was not designed to withstand the impact of a yellow Labrador retriever.
This reminds me of the time I was joggling the Boston Marathon against Zach and was nearly tripped up by a little white dog that was running around on the course. It would have been a spectacular sight if I had fallen - juggling balls and fur balls flying everywhere.

Joggling cash arrives

Author Denise Marek's $20 cash funding for my joggling career has arrived, along with her book, 'Calm,' which she generously included in the package for Dianne (it's written for women).

'Calm' looks like an interesting book. It's about teaching yourself to stop worrying about things and get on with your life.

It's true that people worry too much about what others think about them. I used to go joggling at 4 a.m. in a park so no one would see me. Eventually, I discovered that people were entertained by joggling and there was nothing to be afraid of. I thought young kids would throw rocks at me, but instead they cheered. It was a surreal contrast from my 4 a.m. "closet" joggling when I found myself joggling the Boston Marathon last year in front of one million spectators (and 17,000 runners).

So the question remains: What do I buy with my new found joggling fortunes?

Poor joggling weather at Boston Marathon

I'm very happy that Zach and I agreed not to race the Boston Marathon again this year. Running conditions are atrocious – wind and rain storms – and joggling in this weather would have been suicide.

My weekend was busy with some family fun, and filming with Benjamin from Chump Change Productions. My interview yesterday for the documentary was much better than the one with Evan Solomon because my cold was gone and my allergies were under control.

Good luck to all of my Longboat Roadrunners and RunningMania.com friends who are battling the elements in Beantown.

PRESS RELEASE: The Salt Lake City joggle-off

World Record Up for Grabs as ‘Joggling’ Rivals Face Off at Salt Lake City Marathon

TORONTO – The masters of multi-tasking, Michal “The Joggler” Kapral of Toronto and Zach “The Jolly Juggler” Warren of West Virginia, will race for Guinness World Record glory in a “joggling” showdown at the Salt Lake City Marathon on April 21, 2007.

Kapral, 34, senior editor at Captivate Network, and Warren, 25, a laughter researcher at Harvard, will each juggle three beanbags every step of the way as they race against each other along the scenic 26.2-mile marathon course.

The two elite jogglers have been tossing the world record back and forth in a fierce but friendly rivalry since Kapral first set the mark in 2005, with a time of 3 hours and 7 minutes.

Warren edged out Kapral’s record by just 41 seconds two months later at the Philadelphia Marathon and the stage was set for the first ever joggling marathon duel at the famed Boston Marathon. Warren and Kapral attracted international media attention in their marathon joggle-off, with Warren crossing the line first in a new world-record time of 2 hours and 58 minutes.

Kapral stole the record back with a 2:57 performance at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September 2006. But Warren – with a documentary film crew at his side – again joggled the record back into American hands with a stunning 2:52 in Philadelphia.

“Marathon joggling is a funny sport,” says Kapral, “but this record is seriously difficult. Salt Lake is going to see a no-holds-barred joggling battle and I really want to take the record back.”

Both jogglers are raising money for children’s charities. Kapral is accepting donations for A Run For Liane in support of The Hospital for Sick Children’s new childhood cancer research centre in Toronto, and Warren, also a unicyclist and circus performer, is collecting funds for the Afghan Mobile Mini-Circus for Children, an NGO based in Kabul (http://www.unicycle4kids.org/).

Kapral, a father of two girls, holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest joggling 10K (36 minutes and 27 seconds) and also the Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon pushing a baby in a stroller (2 hours and 49 minutes). He won the Toronto Marathon in 2002 (without juggling) in a personal-best time of 2:30. Kapral writes a popular blog called The Bloggling Joggler.

Warren is a Divinity graduate student at Harvard and has been studying the healing effects of laughter on children in Afghanistan. Warren holds the world records for the fastest mile on a unicycle and the fastest mile on a unicycle while juggling three objects.

Guinness World Records rules state that if the joggler drops a ball, he must return to the drop point before continuing. The balls must be juggled continuously in traditional cascade pattern.

HIGH-RES PHOTOS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Contact: Michal or Dianne Kapral at T:416-690-8887 or C:416-573-3036, thejoggler1@gmail.com.

Running, juggling and joggling inspiration

Still no running, no juggling and no joggling, but my neck is starting to feel better.

During this forced training retreat, I've had some extra time to relax. We finished Season 5 of '24' last night, and I've been getting myself motivated for the upcoming Salt Lake City duel by watching some running, juggling and joggling on YouTube:

Here's the end of Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley's "Duel in the Sun" at the 1982 Boston Marathon. I had hoped that my joggling duel with Zach last year in Boston would end with me pulling away from Zach, just like Salazar did to Beardsley. But instead it was Zach who pulled away from me at the 17-mile mark. In Salt Lake, I plan to reverse this.



For some vintage juggling inspiration, here's Swiss star Kris Kremo:



And Perry "Just Your Average Joggler" Romanowski takes care of the joggling inspiration with this clip of himself joggling up a mountain in Arizona:



Coming soon: The Salt Lake City Marathon joggling duel press release.

"Holy...!" "Oh my...!" "What the...!?"

Yesterday's joggling mileage: 10 miles

It's all about the speed. Last night's 10-mile joggling extravaganza included 6 x 1 mile speed intervals with two minutes of jogging (joggle jogging?) in between each. I got a rush out of blasting past pedestrians and hearing little snippets of exclamations, like "No waaay!" "Cool!" "You rock!" "That guy's...!" "Holy...!" "Oh my...!" and "What the...!?"

You may be wondering why I log my distances in miles rather than kilometres, given that I live in the metric nation of Canada. (You may also be wondering why I spend such a significant chunk of my life trying to set obscure Guinness World Records, but that's another issue that I'm still trying to resolve in my own mind.)

The main reason for using miles is that joggling 10 miles seems much more manageable to me than 16 km. Kilometres simply psyche me out. Joggling is quite bit harder than running, so I'd rather have larger units of measurement. A 20-mile long joggle – piece of cake. A 36-km joggle – forget it, too many units.

The other logic of measuring in miles is that four laps around a standard outdoor track equal one mile (or just shy of a mile, if you want to get technical), so it makes things easier to calculate in terms of track workouts. Even when I'm doing intervals on the road, I usually think in terms of half-mile, one-mile and two-mile intervals.

And finally, the Salt Lake City Marathon is in the U.S. – that stubborn non-metric holdout – so I might as well get used to setting my pace in miles. I remember the first time I ran the Boston Marathon after training in kilometres, having no clue whether of not I was on pace. I recall crossing the 10-mile marker, looking at the clock thinking: "I have no idea what that means." What it meant, I would discover much later, was that I was running way too fast, and would end up completing the historic road race looking like a very sick, inebriated geriatric.