Q. Are there any special qualifications to join the group?

A. No, but in order to be able to safely manage the recommended schedule and keep up with the group you should have already established a sound base of weekly mileage and longer runs before the program starts in January. We strongly urge you to prepare yourself for the program by gradually increasing your weekly running mileage at easy aerobic paces between now and January 9th to build to an average weekly mileage of 35-45 miles per week and a comfortable long run of 12-14 miles. Our first group long run on January 16th will be 14 miles so you'll need to be ready for that when we start. There are no pace qualifications either for joining the program, but we do alert you that there tend not to be many runners who join us at paces of 10:30 per mile and slower and therefore the pace groups in those ranges may be small to non-existent.

Q. I'm not running the Boston Marathon. Can I still train with the Boston Bound group?

A. Absolutely! While we have designed the basic program schedule to peak at Boston on April 19th, the coaches are happy to customize the schedule to fit with your spring marathon. You may have to do slightly different track workouts and long run distances on some weeks to accommodate the differences, but we'll be there to show you the way.

Q. How are the pace groups determined?

A. We use your best and most current race time to determine your level of running fitness and from that we assign you to a group of runners who are capable of racing at comparable paces. A current 5K to 10 mile race time is much better for us than a marathon time as less can "go wrong" in a shorter race to influence the result.

Q. Will there be other runners in my pace group?

A. Its hard for us to predict this before all of the registration forms have been received for the 2010 training session, but in general if you run your easy/long runs at a pace of between 8:00 and 10:30 per mile you can be pretty confident that you will have a reasonable number of other runners in your group. At 10:30 per mile and slower there tend to be fewer participants and as a result smaller groups.

Q. Where and when does the group meet for training runs?

A. We meet as a group for runs twice per week on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. The Tuesday workouts are held at 6:30 PM at the track at Walt Whitman High School located at 7100 Whittier Boulevard, Bethesda, MD 20817. The Saturday runs will meet at 7:30 AM at different locations, but our most frequent meeting spot is the large metered parking lot at Bethesda and Woodmont Avenue across from Barnes & Noble in downtown Bethesda at the Capital Crescent Trail crossing.

Q. Will we have a written schedule to follow for our training?

A. Absolutely. A detailed training schedule with recommended daily mileage, Tuesday track workouts and weekend long runs will be provided along with specific training paces for all runs.

Q. Will there be a discussion forum for members of the group to communicate with one another?

A. Yes. We will be setting up a yahoo group for the 2010 Boston Bound Program which will be our primary method of communicating with all group members and which will allow us to efficiently share files, photos and other useful information. Once you have joined the program you will be invited to join the group.