{"id":79930,"date":"2025-01-18T21:52:37","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T04:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-alumna-and-husband-set-their-sights-on-boston-marathon-2\/"},"modified":"2025-01-18T21:52:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T04:52:37","slug":"dolores-alumna-and-husband-set-their-sights-on-boston-marathon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-alumna-and-husband-set-their-sights-on-boston-marathon-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores alumna and husband set their sights on Boston Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Teegan
Teegan (Hite) Schlagel and her husband, Jonathan Schlagel, both qualified for the 2025 Boston Marathon, scheduled for Monday, April 21. (Teegan Schlagel\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

To Dolores High School alumni Teegan (Hite) Schlagel and her husband, Jonathan Schlagel, running isn\u2019t just a casual hobby. The duo qualified to run in the 2025 Boston Marathon, on April 21, not long after attempting their first marathon at the end of 2023.<\/p>\n

\"Teegan
Teegan (Hite) Schlagel (background) ran track and cross-country at Dolores High School before graduating in 2016. (Journal file photo)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Teegan Schlagel graduated from Dolores High School in 2016, where she ran track in middle school and high school. She also ran cross-country in high school.<\/p>\n

Her love of running was cultivated while she was elementary-school age. After high school, Teegan studied elementary education at the University of Northern Colorado. There, she and Jonathan Schlagel met at a church in Fort Collins. The two were married in 2020.<\/p>\n

Now, the couple run together while balancing their careers, Jonathan as an engineer and Teegan, an elementary school teacher near the Front Range.<\/p>\n

Teegan found that running as an adult is much different from running as a student. One of those differences is having control over the training program and being able to choose which races to attend and where.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunning as an adult is different from running as a student because you have more independence and control over your training plan and schedule and over the races and events you enter,\u201d Teegan said. \u201cIt is up to you to choose races that look interesting to you, set your own goals and times for the race, and then to go about planning your training in such a way that you can reach your goals. \u2026 It is also exciting to choose races in places where you wouldn\u2019t normally run, like other states, climates and with other scenery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teegan and Jonathan ran their first marathon in October 2023 in Windsor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter experiencing the race and realizing our times weren\u2019t too far away from Boston Marathon qualifying times, we decided in January of last year that we wanted to try and qualify for the Boston Marathon,\u201d Teegan said.<\/p>\n

\"Teegan
Teegan (Hite) Schlagel qualified for the Boston Marathon in June and again in September. (Teegan Schlagel\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

To qualify, runners must run at a Boston Marathon qualifying course under a time that is based on age and gender. Teegan had to run a marathon in under 3 hours and 30 minutes, while Jonathan had to beat a time of 3:00:00.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter making this our goal, we found a marathon in Newport, Oregon, that was a Boston-qualifying approved course and created a 16-week training plan to help us become faster and prepare for the race,\u201d Teegan said. \u201cWe both had to drop about 17 minutes to be under the qualifying time, so we worked a lot on speed and increasing our marathon tempo pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that race, which took place in June of 2024, both Jonathan and Teegan qualified for the marathon. Teegan ran the 26.2 miles in 3:27:56, and Jonathan in 2:57:29.<\/p>\n

Through they had both qualified, the Schlagels began training even harder to cut more time to solidify their place in Boston.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause there is such a large number of people who want to run in the Boston Marathon, the Boston Athletic Association will cut people with the slowest qualifying times so that they do not have more than about 30,000 to 35,000 runners,\u201d Teegan said. \u201cBased on predicted time cuts, we knew that we would probably still get cut with our times from the Oregon marathon, so we decided to race again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan
Jonathan Schlagel qualified for the Boston Marathon in June and again in September. (Teegan Schlagel\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Cutting more time wouldn\u2019t be easy, but they implemented techniques that would help them achieve their goal qualifying times. With the clock ticking until the qualifying deadline, Jonathan and Teegan created a 10-week training plan in preparation for a September marathon in Snogualmie Pass in Washington.<\/p>\n

Some of the changes they made to their running regimen included adjusting their nutrition to utilize gels that would help keep their energy up while training and racing, upgrading their shoes to carbon-plated race shoes and learning how to help their bodies recover faster while training.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking these changes made a huge difference and at the race in Washington we were both able to drop another seven to 10 minutes,\u201d Teegan said.<\/p>\n

At the Washington marathon, Teegan completed the race with a time of 3:20:08 and Jonathan finished with a time of 2:48:32.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used these times to apply for the Boston Marathon during the application week in September and found out in October that we had been accepted to run in the 2025 Boston Marathon,\u201d Teegan said. \u201cWhen we learned that we had qualified for the Boston Marathon, we were both very excited and felt blessed to be able to run in such a prestigious and historical race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teegan shared that throughout their training, she had struggled with some minor injuries. Despite these injuries, she was able to qualify for this historic marathon with her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very thankful to be healthy enough to be able to run and qualify. We are also grateful that we get to do this together, thankful to God to have this amazing opportunity and to our families for their support throughout all of our training and races,\u201d Teegan said.<\/p>\n

Out of the 36,393 people who qualified for the marathon, 12,324 people were cut. Teegan estimated that runners would have to run nearly seven minutes faster than the qualifying time to be accepted into the race. And while both Teegan and Jonathan have qualified, the work isn\u2019t over yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we look toward the Boston Marathon, we have adjusted a few things to our training program. We began a 16-week training plan in late December and both increased our speed for our marathon tempo runs, as we both want to PR at the Boston,\u201d Teegan said. \u201cEach week, we have a variety of runs, which include easy and recovery runs, tempo runs, intervals and sprints, long runs and strength training. We started at lower mileages and will gradually work up to higher mileages, maxing out with a 21-mile long run during the peak of our training.\u201d<\/p>\n

They will continue utilizing the energy gels and work on training for hills, as the Boston Marathon will include several difficult hills.<\/p>\n

Teegan\u2019s goal time for Boston is 3:15:00 and Jonathan\u2019s is 2:45:00.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a new course and so many more people than we are used to, we know cutting more time could be difficult and we will enjoy the experience regardless,\u201d Teegan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Hite) Schlagel\u2019s running roots began in Dolores<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,38,276,28,60,1914,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-79930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dolores-middle-school","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-running","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79930"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=79930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}