For the first time ever, the Traverse City Track Club (TCTC) will have a presence in the Boston Marathon’s prestigious Team Competition. The club has 19 runners who have qualified to run in this year’s Boston Marathon, entered across the four categories offered for the team event. The 2019 Boston Marathon – the 123rd incarnation of the annual race – will take place on Monday, April 15.

The Boston Marathon is open to runners who have run qualifying times in previous, recent marathons. Qualifying times for Boston vary depending on gender and age group. For the 2019 race, qualifying performances needed to have been run between September 16, 2017 and September 19, 2018. For the Team Competition, runners must either have run qualifying times within the standard window, or must be charity-based runners who have submitted applications and been accepted to run in the event.

The Boston Marathon Team Competition is only open to running clubs like TCTC, which have current memberships with USA Track & Field (USATF) or the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA). TCTC is a member of RRCA. Foreign running clubs can also enter the competition, if they have active memberships in “equivalent foreign national athletics organization.

There are four different Team Competition events at the Boston Marathon: one each for the open male, open female, male masters, and female masters categories. Open team members must be 18 years old or older, while masters categories include all runners who are over the age of 40. In order to enter any Team Competition event, a running club must have at least three runners in that category who have run qualifying times or been accepted for participation. TCTC is sending teams in all four categories.

Team Competition scores are determined based on the aggregate Boston Marathon times of the top three runners for each team. The winning team in each category will be the team with the lowest aggregate time.

Below is a list of the TCTC runners who will be participating in the Boston Marathon as part of the Team Competition. Their bib numbers, in parenthesis, can be used to track their progress on the marathon course on the morning of April 25. The gun for the Boston Marathon goes off at 10am. Bib tracking is available here.

Men’s Open Team
1. Kyle Kiel (1770)
2. Matthew Nester (1691)
3. Zachary Sayre (3478)
4. Chris Stark (4677)

Women's Open Team
1. Amanda Gillis (14821)
2. Jami Grant (11813)
3. Carrie Merrithew (8812)
4. Erica Parkinson (18024)

Men's Masters Team
1. Maurice Borden (21750)
2. Douglas Brown (9867)
3. Trevor Darnell (3440)
4. Matthew Johnston (16616)
5. Joseph Lasceski (7384)
6. George Townsend (25276)

Women's Masters Team
1. Jill Burden (19606)
2. Erica Harrell (16945)
3. Dena Johnson (21306)
4. Susan Townsend (20104)
5. Amanda Walton (18032)