Boston Marathon is back on the table!!

wow, I just got off the phone with the Boston Athletic Association. I was inquiring as to whether or not they had a transgender policy, which apparently they don’t. but they did say that race application acceptances would be for the same sex for which the qualifying race was run, regardless of biological sex on race day!

What I also found out, which was a great surprise, is that their official qualifying times are different from what it says on their website. Anything within 1.59 of the website time is deemed a qualification, no questions asked, not just within 0.59. So my 3.16.59, which I initially thought was 60 seconds too slow, was deemed an official qualifying time. So I can feel satisfied that I have, in fact, officially qualified!

i was quite certain that i did not want to try to beg my way in, and i am glad that this is not going to have to be the case. Ultimately, i did feel that i did not want to ever run a race as a male ever again, but that was under the impression that i had not qualified. Since i have, in fact, qualified, i feel i have some unfinished business to attend to on April 20, 2009.

ultimatley, this means that I will get to hit my initial goal that i set back in 2007 of running Boston at least once as a male, then hopefully many more times as a female in years to come.

Now comes the challenge of doing whatever I can so I can show up on race day in the best possible physical and emotional shape. Ultimately, even if the race doesn’t go well, I can at least feel good about the fact that I made it!

for the past 5 days, i have taken a reduced amount of testosterone blockers and this has help with energy levels. ultimately, i will now be working really hard to get as much weight off as i can. then i will want to focus on resting and rehabilitating my sore knees. i really want this Boston race to be as good as possible. it's obviously way too early to start setting time goals, but it would certainly be great run a personal best marathon time there. even with me being deeper in estrogen therapy, and even with the possibility of not having testicles, there's a chance that i could still improve my health and fitness enough to make it happen. definitely something to shoot for as i head into the long cold winter season!

Jennifer