The Boston Marathon. By Valeria Vanegas Camarena.

 BOSTON

Established in 1897, the Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual

marathon, and perhaps the only major marathon held on a Monday. It

is done every third Monday of April, which is Patriot’s Day in the US.

Boston is a very historic race that many runners across the world wish

to participate in, but it’s tough to get a spot. Unless you’re running to

raise money for charity, you’ll need to run a Boston Qualifying time (or

BQ) at a marathon sometime in the preceding year. The BQ standards

are held up as a measure of excellence in amateur marathoning, so

much so that many marathons with fast courses often advertise

themselves as Boston Qualifier courses.

Boston Marathon is a point-to-point and net-downhill course hence

does not meet the requirements set for courses eligible for the world

records.

In 2011, Kenya’s Geoffrey Mutai won the Boston Marathon with

2:03:02, which was the world’s fastest time then, but did not qualify as

a world record.