In case you missed the announcement...

...my husband qualified for the Boston marathon with his time at the Marshall University marathon this weekend.

This is a big deal.

To give you a sense of how big of a deal, only 3% of all runners run a marathon. Any marathon. Of that, less than 10% run a qualifying time for the Boston marathon.

And why is the Boston marathon so elite? Well, it is one of only two marathons in the US that requires a qualifying time to enter. And unlike the NYC marathon, in which you need a qualifying half-marathon time, you need to have run a full 26.2 miles somewhere else and have run a specific time or better to get into Boston.

For Wayne, he needed to run a 3:35 marathon for his age group to qualify for Boston. He completed the Marshall University marathon in 3:24:48. And it was a tough one, with calf cramps the last 6 miles, but he pushed through it to get the time he traveled to West Virginia for.

When he called me to tell me he's qualified, it was the best phone call of my life. I can't think of another time in my life when I was so anxious for the phone to ring and so thrilled to get the call. It was like I'd run the marathon myself...well okay not really, but still...

So he will be registering to run Boston in 2012 (since the 2011 registration is already closed). In the meantime, he already registered for the Big Sur marathon in Monterey, CA, in May of 2011, and hopes to also do the NYC marathon in November of next year.

This was Wayne's biggest goal in his personal life, one he's been working so hard for since he ran his first marathon two years ago. It's taken a lot of work and sacrifice to achieve this.

Did I mention how proud I am?