Boston Qualifying and Running Weight and Height

You've got quick weight to lose, assuming you're not all muscle.

We don't know what you ran the 1:35 off of. Some background information would help. Even without knowing your background, you have a chance if you lose the weight and have some quality training.

However, there's really only one way to find out...

I was running about 30 mpw until about 8 weeks ago. The past month I have been at about 38 mpw. It consists of a long run, one rest day and the rest 45 minute easy runs between 4.6-5.4 miles in 45 minutes. I live in a very hilly area so my runs are always slow, 8:30- to 9:00 minutes miles. I went to a flat trail to do a long run last week and that was 15.1 miles at 7:49 pace. I haven't done speed work in a long time.

This summer I am going to focus on a fast 10k sub 40 before trying to qualify for Boston. While working on my 10k I was thinking of alternating long runs of 10 miles and 14 miles. I'll start working speed work in during this period.

Wow...that is massive size for a distance runner! That's about my size when I played cornerback at the college level back in the 1980s. And to run 1:35 at your size is incredible. I'm down a little from my college football weight (182 on a 6-0 frame) and can't touch your HM time with a 10 ft pole! Man...I bet if you dropped another 10-12 lbs you'd smoke the BQ qualifier and then some. Remember weight isn't a runner's best friend but nonetheless you've got some wheels at that size! ?

Big Runners That Run Fast wrote:

Wow...that is massive size for a distance runner! That's about my size when I played cornerback at the college level back in the 1980s. And to run 1:35 at your size is incredible. I'm down a little from my college football weight (182 on a 6-0 frame) and can't touch your HM time with a 10 ft pole! Man...I bet if you dropped another 10-12 lbs you'd smoke the BQ qualifier and then some. Remember weight isn't a runner's best friend but nonetheless you've got some wheels at that size! ?

Thanks for the encouragement. Yes I have always been heavy for a runner. Senior year of HS I was about 165 lbs and running at a very high level.

You do understand that there's a difference between qualifying, and actually get accepted into the race, right?

A 3:05 "qualifies" you, but it's pretty much just a title. For the 2018 race, you had to be 3:30 or so faster than your BQ to actually get accepted. So you should be shooting for a 3:01.

And there's a decent chance the BQ times get tightened 5 more minutes for 2019, so unless you age up you'll be looking at 3:00.

I was hoping you'd say you ran the 1:35 off under 25 miles/wk.

At 30-38 mpw, your room for improvement is a lot less. You'll have to shed serious weight and fine tune your work outs/follow a good training plan to have a chance.

I've seen friends similar to your size/weight have spurts of success with weight loss, but they also seem to be the ones who end up with more joint issues and get knocked out of running for prolonged periods.

rereading my post I see it's confusing re: qualifying times vs getting in, so....

https://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/2018-boston-marathon-cut-off-time

Some guy that posts on the weekly train thread has run 1:18 and 2:44 at over 200 pounds.

I am 6'4" and got down from 220 pounds to about 200 to qualify at Myrtle Beach (pro tip - pick the best course for you to try a BQ). I re-qualified a year ago at maybe 203 lbs. Needed 3:25 and ran 3:21 and change. Being realistic, you do want to target 5 minutes faster than your "time" to be safe.

6-6, 185 lbs

1:16:23 half PR

2:42:17 full PR

Was prob more like 190-195 when I first BQ’d with a 3:00:52 but I didn’t really watch my weight back then so I’m not sure exactly what I weighed.

You could easily lose 20 lbs. It will help a lot.

A short female, so probably not a good data point for you, but I went from a 4:20 to a 3:30 in a couple of years, mostly by increasing mileage (peaking at 40 mpw to peaking at 85 mpw) but also by dropping from 130ish to 115ish (5'3"). I feel a lot faster when I am leaner. I lost a decent portion of the weight by giving up drinking for 6 weeks.... fell right off.

whatsupchucky wrote:

rereading my post I see it's confusing re: qualifying times vs getting in, so....

https://www.runnersworld.com/boston-marathon/2018-boston-marathon-cut-off-time

The lesson is: do not go popping off on LR the moment you hit 3:04:59. Gloat only once officially accepted.

I have qualified and run Boston over 20 times and was probably over 190 lbs 1/2 to 3/4 if the years I qualified.

Don’t worry about your weight so much. Instead emphasize putting in the miles and do as much training on soft surfaces as possible. Do some longer tempo runs too.

With more work if you stay healthy you should be able to qualify. Good luck. Boston is a fun town to visit and the marathon is a great experience.

Seriously?..190 and able to qualify for Boston? That's simply amazing to run that fast towing 190 lbs. Most of the Boston qualifiers I see are generally smallish, slender, skinny type fellows. I know a couple from my running club who qualify every year and they both go buck thirty or so soak & wet. Lol.

Congratulations & keep up the good work big guy.

You should be able to drop from 1:35 to 1:30 just by losing some weight. Rule of thumb is that losing 2 lbs of weight makes you run 1min faster in a marathon. That's not an exact formula by any means but it hints that you might need to drop 20 pounds to improve 10 minutes in the marathon. That's without doing any extra training or anything. You could just as easily get ten minutes faster by just training a lot more. 40 mpw is not enough. Most people I know who run 2:50-3:05 marathons run about 60 mpw.

You could probably stand to lose more weight than that. I'm the same height and I've raced at 167 or so the past few years. Ran a 1:28 half, but only a 3:22 marathon which I attribute partially to still carrying too much weight.

I think I could stand to be 160... but it's hard to get there.