Nick Blei Runs in the 127th Boston Marathon

They say the pride of finishing a marathon is much greater than the pain of enduring it, and as runners prepare today to run the 127th Boston Marathon, Drummond Woodsum wishes the best of luck to Nick Blei.

Nick set a personal goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon in 2017 when he first got back into competitive running after a lengthy hiatus between high school and graduating law school.  The Boston Marathon is unique in the world of running because it is the world’s oldest continually running marathon (since 1897) and is one of the only marathons in the world that has strict qualification standards.  In other words, to run Boston, you must first run a qualifying marathon at or below the Boston qualifying standard, also known as the BQ.  In the world of running, the BQ is a highly sought after achievement, and the challenge was what had him hooked.  After years of training, numerous set-backs with injuries, and a global pandemic that shut-down road races, Nick finally ran his first marathon in April of 2022 and earned his BQ with a time of 2:59 (5 minutes under the qualifying standard).  “For me, this was the running equivalent of graduating law school and passing the bar exam,” said Nick.

While most people don’t consider running to be a spectator sport, consider this: the marathon world record holder, Eliud Kipchoge, will be running Boston this year, and he is at the top of his game.  Kipchoge is the Tom Brady of distance running.  Tune in, and you may just see history in the making, and who knows, you may feel inspired to do some running of your own.  Interested in tracking the runners?  Visit the Boston Athletic Association’s website (https://www.baa.org/) for more information.

Based in Drummond Woodsum’s New Hampshire office, Nick focuses his practice on advising private and public entities on a full spectrum of employment matters, including collective bargaining negotiations, contract administration, and grievance and arbitration proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies.