There was one day a few years ago, I was working in Boston for the summer, and I'd had an idea. One day, I'd love to run the Boston Marathon. I'd never run a marathon, still haven't, but running through the streets of Boston, I couldn't help but dream. Then I looked up the qualifying times. For 2018, the qualifying time for my age group (18-34) is 3:05 which is just over a 7-minute mile. I very quickly set my sites on much lower goals, maybe New York one day! But as I sat talking to this Boston finisher, I felt the same drive, the same inspiration, the same curiosity start to creep up inside. Then he told me that he never thought he'd qualify for Boston either. He chose a year to really chase it, and couldn't believe it when he made it. Then he told me "Once I qualified for the first time, the second and third were easy because I'd already done it."

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When I first started running in high school, running further than 5k was out of the question. I pushed myself through my first half, and it was brutal, but I made it, and my time wasn't half bad. Now training for a half seems like clockwork, and I've even made it through a race or two without much training at all. Driving home from the bar, I couldn't stop thinking about trying to qualify for Boston, and I knew there was no way I was going to be able to write the same post I'd started writing on my run just earlier that night. I knew I had to commit to Boston if I ever wanted to qualify.

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UPDATE: I've officially registered for my first marathon!

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So that's what I'm doing. This is me committing to all of you that I'm going to run the Boston Marathon. Now it's definitely not going to be a quick process, I still haven't even run a marathon. It's time to start taking baby steps though so I think it's time to pick my first full. Who knows, maybe I'll change it up at Rock 'n' Roll New Orleans this year and make that my first one! I know this is all pretty vague, but give me a break, I just made this decision on Monday! Don't worry though I'm sure I RUN ON BEER will be the first to know so stay tuned!

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Until then, I'm definitely looking for advice, so let me know your thoughts in the comments below? What was your first marathon? Have you ever run Boston? Any pro-tips you can give to someone who's never run a full marathon before?