I will not be running in the 2026 Boston Marathon.*

This goal was always a little tricky because I could only control so much of it.

I did what I needed to do for my part of it, but in the end it came down to chance.

Advice: Don’t set a goal for which a lottery decides your fate. (In retrospect my goal should have been ‘qualify for the lottery’, not ‘run the 2026 Boston Marathon.’)

I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t disappointed.

More disappointed than I thought I’d be, actually.

It’s not like I got my hopes up irrationally - but in this scenario I wanted to be prepared in case at the moment I needed to start making a marathon training plan rather than writing a disappointing blog post.

I kind of think there was no other way to approach it than prepare for an acceptance, deal with it if it’s a no later on.

*Here’s where the asterisk comes in, though. I am an alternate. If names are listed in order of wait list, I would be second on the list. So I’d need two of the six people to decide not to register, but that feels like a real long shot.

But there’s still a shot. I know better than anyone, having been tenth on the waitlist for the first time I ran with Team Framingham and ending up being able to run.

So that’s what complicates things here - I am not going to sign up for the volunteering I did last year because I don’t know that I can 100% commit to it. If there’s a 1% chance I can run on Marathon Monday…well, I don’t want to put the organizer in a bad spot because I’m bailing on him after telling him I could do it.

(I know it seems ridiculously early for these commitments but this is how it works. All aspects of the Boston Marathon are insanely competitive and in order to maintain the privileges that come to the running club I think you have to show you have your ducks in a row really early.)

(And I guess I can still apply to be a volunteer with the BAA and wait until March to find out if I am accepted, but I’ve done that a few times and have had zero success so I don’t think that’s a realistic possibility.)

So that’s kind of the bigger bummer here. I didn’t expect a ‘maybe’ outcome. I thought ‘yes’ - I’m running, ‘no’ - then I’m volunteering, but now I am in a little bit of a limbo.

In the end it will be OK. I’ll have people to root for in April - a couple of friends were able to grab these lottery bibs.

I can now get cracking on the 2026 running plan - or I guess I can after Thursday. That’s when the Chicago lottery results are shared. I don’t have a good feeling about that one, though. And I know I don’t have to keep running the majors…but if I keep getting a chance to run them, I will. It’s such a great experience.

Maybe this is the opportunity to give another race I’ve been meaning to try a go.

And in the grand scheme of things a year isn’t all that long - I can always try again for Boston 2027.