The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-362 – Rick Hoyt – a Running Life  (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4362.mp3] Link epi4362.mp3 MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/ Hello my friends and welcome to Episode 4-362 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Chris here.  I am criminally behind in my production schedule.  As some of you may have divined, especially those of you on LinkedIn, I changed gigs over the last couple months and am now back in startup land.  It’s not my startup, but still the the urgency and lack of resources spills over.  (Humorous editor’s note: Microsoft word tried to change ‘divined’ to ‘deveined’ which is something totally different.  That combined with being in my last few weeks of marathon training for Boston creates less space and opportunity to write and record.  The company is out of Silicon Valley, (of course), and I’m out of Boston so there’s a 3-hour time change.  Even thought you’d think you’d be able to adjust your work days, it always seems to add 3 or more hours to the day.  It reminds me of when I had a job where I had to contend with Boston’s infamous traffic.  I devised a plan to go in a couple hours early to beat the traffic and then leave a couple hours early on the back end of the day to beat the traffic again.  What really ended up happening was I’d go in early, get caught up in the day, and end up going home late after the traffic.  I’m sure there’s some math we could use there to make everyone’s lives simpler.  The way we have arranged it everyone’s whims always line up.  For example, let’s say you’re sitting at work on a warm Friday in June and you think “I know, I’ll leave early and get a jump on driving to the Cape for the weekend!” You can bet that there are a couple hundred thousand people having that same thought at that same time and you will be soon sucking C02 with them on Route 6.  I’m sure all of this will be solved when the impartial Artificial Intelligence of the robot overlords takes over.  But, will we miss it?  Will we someday be writing long, sorrowful poems in praise of a good traffic jam?  How it brought our families together and made the fabric of society stronger?  How did I get down this rat hole? Oh, yeah.  It’s Saturday Morning and It’s snowing.  It’s been snowing for 24 hours and it’s April first.  Last time we got this kind of spring weather two weeks before the Boston Marathon was 2006.  It ended up being 85 degrees at the starting line that year.  Today I bring you a RunRunLive podcast exclusive.  An interview with Rick Hoyt.  Rick has run almost twice as many Boston marathons as I have and I’m running my 19th this year.  I am thrilled to be able to ask him questions directly.  My favorite Hoyt story is how Dick and Rick pushed their way into the Boston Marathon.  The Boston Athletic Association of the late 1970’s would not be considered an ‘open-minded’ organization.  They were steadfast in their belief that the Boston Marathon was a traditional race.  You had to qualify.  You had to be a man.  You had to pass a physical and be a ‘real’ able-bodied athlete to get in.  Dick tried to get in and they wouldn’t let him.  They thought they had a good barrier to entry that he wouldn’t be able to get over.  They told him that he had to qualify, not only in his age group, but in Rick’s age group as well.  At the time this meant Dick had to run better than a 2:50 marathon with Rick.  Dick didn’t whine about it.  He didn’t sue them.  Instead he trained and ran a 2:45 qualifying race pushing Rick.  This was before racing chairs existed.  This was before the first running boom.  These guys were breaking new ground.  They were all alone.  Their dogged persistence, their unassuming commitment to the sport, their grit earned them a spot on the starting line in Hopkinton.  The way they did it also earned the respect of the running world and opened a do