Staff photo / Joel Whetzel Among the locals taking part in the Boston Marathon are, from left to right: Sarah Hixson, Dean Cutrer, Courtney Clark, Gia Nigro, Caitlyn Hadley and Mark Hadley.

BOARDMAN — Mark Hadley had no intent of qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

The former Boardman High School standout runner and resident of Canfield was in Eugene, Oregon, for the Eugene Marathon as a coach, and was simply going to pace one of his athletes through the first 15 miles.

“In the process of flying across the country, I decided it was pretty silly of me to stop halfway through a marathon, and I pushed through to the finish,” he said.

That, of course, wasn’t without consequences.

“I paid dearly for it,” Hadley said. “I was woefully undertrained, and I cramped up for the next two hours. It was a miserable experience.”

As far as training went, Hadley’s longest run topped out at 15 miles, and though it wasn’t his first marathon, it was his first full-effort marathon.

But with a time of 2:35:16, he made the cut for the Boston Marathon.

That in itself is no small feat. Men in Hadley’s age group — 18-34 years old — have to run a 3-hour marathon just to qualify. That doesn’t guarantee entry into the race, though. Due to the number of qualifiers, the race accepts only the fastest times in each age group. About 30,000 runners will take part in this year’s race.

The hard cutoff, says Poland resident Sarah Hixson, is what makes Boston so prestigious. Hixson is also running in the famed race, set for April 15.

“It’s the level of difficulty of getting into the race. It’s almost like two levels of qualification because not only do you need to hit your time, but there’s the round of (cuts) — just because you’ve hit that time doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make it,” she said. “I think that the prestige of it is that there’s no lottery ticket. It’s a lot more cutthroat than other major road marathons, and that’s the specialness of it, and it’s just the history of it.”

Hixson and Hadley are just two of several runners from the Mahoning Valley headed to Boston — others include Dean Cutrer (Canfield), Dawn Gregory (Cortland), Caitlyn Hadley (Youngstown), Gia Nigro (Boardman) and Courtney Clark (New Castle, Pa.).

With a little more training now, Hadley feels a bit more comfortable going into Boston, even if it is his debut in the race.

Prior to the race in Eugene, Hadley said he was averaging 40-45 miles per week, with a long run topping out at 15 miles. Now, as Boston approaches, he’s gone on runs of 20-22 miles and has run about 70 miles per week — “a little more reasonable and feeling a little more prepared than the last time around,” he added.

He hasn’t set a firm expectation though, but rather is going in with “open expectations” and wants to enjoy the experience and make memories with his family.

Hixson, meanwhile, is running the Boston Marathon for the ninth time. Qualifying for Boston is always an honor, but Hixson is aiming as high as possible.

“The main obstacle for me — I’m almost 49 years old — and so with me being a competitive runner for so long, it’s not really about the difficulty of qualifying for Boston, it’s running it faster than I have,” Hixson said. “And I think the internal challenge of me aging is constantly tweaking my training plan, paying more attention to nutrition, just doing the little things that didn’t necessarily matter so much in the past.

“When you have youth, you can get away with not doing the little things, but approaching 50 years old and marathoning, you definitely need to pay attention to the little things in order to be successful.”

Hixson qualified for this year’s race — the 128th in Boston Marathon history — multiple times, but her best time, a mark of 3:10, came at the California International Marathon in December. That time ranks competitively in her age range, so Hixson is eager for the race.

There’s also special meaning behind this year’s race, because it just might be Hixson’s final at the Boston Marathon. Her next challenge is to run each of the world’s six major marathons — Boston, New York City, Chicago, Tokyo, Berlin and London. She’s set to run the New York City Marathon in November.

“That’s really the type of goal that helps me think of what’s next after Boston,” she explained.

She added, “I’ve done Boston so much that I kind of feel like I need to see what’s next, even though Boston holds a special place in my heart.”

After the race, the runners plan to enjoy their time in the city and soak in the moment.

And, Hadley says, it will be nice to just be finished with the process.

“To be honest, I’m looking forward to crossing the finish line to decompress a little bit and not focus so much on this,” he said. “It feels like it’s been the pinnacle of my existence for the last four months or so.”

Given the prestige of the race, it could be the new pinnacle of his and others’ running careers, too.

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