Waddick finishes Boston Marathon

Waddick finishes Boston Marathon

It took two and a half years, but Georgetown's Claudine Waddick finally managed to run the Boston Marathon. Waddick and her best friend Mary-Teresa Hiltz set out about 2 1/2 years ago to run a marathon and try to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which is the oldest marathon and the only one that requires runners to complete another marathon in under a set qualifying time based on age and gender. In their first marathon, Hiltz managed to run fast enough to qualify for Boston and she ended up running the famed race last year. However, Waddick failed in her first attempt to qualify but didn't give up. She ran a couple of more marathons, before successfully qualifying for last week's race which was run in the worst weather conditions in the 111-year history of the Boston Marathon. Waddick not only finished the race but did so in a fast enough time--three hours and 46 minutes-- to qualify for next year's Boston Marathon. The poor weather this year resulted in the slowest winning time in 30 years. The elite men's champion was Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya in a time of 2:14:13 while the elite women's champion was Russia's Lidiya Grigoryeva (2:29:18). A total of 22,500 runners took part in this year's race.