The Boston Marathon starts at home


“I have run seven marathons so far, and eight will be enough,” Alldredge said, while the group laughed. The Boston Marathon will be lucky number seven for Appleton, who started running races three years ago. He said his roommate in college got him to run the New York Marathon back in 1980 and after that he knew he never wanted to run again.
Vanderschalie said the Boston Marathon is the only one nationally that has qualifying times. He said they did this to limit the size of the field, which currently boasts about 20,000 participants. It is smaller than the New York Marathon, which normally has about 38,000 runners.


