Sandoval easily hits 3-hour goal, finishes 12th in San Diego race

Gabe Sandoval of Westboro is still relatively new when it comes to distance running, but he quickly achieved one of his goals while finishing 12th in one of the nation’s largest marathons, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego on Sunday, June 5.

Sandoval, the business manager at Forest Springs and the Prentice-Rib Lake cross country head coach finished in 2:44:08 to finish among the top dozen of 4,395 runners who took part in the full marathon. Of those runners, 2,777 were men.

That time makes him eligible to submit a registration application for the 2023 Boston Marathon, arguably the most prestigious marathon run annually in the United States.

“That was kind of my goal for that race and about what I thought I could hit,” Sandoval said. “With a marathon there are so many things that can go wrong, so you never really know. Since I’ve gotten into running I’ve been doing about one a year. I think that’s my fifth marathon and that’s the biggest one that I’ve done. The ones that I’ve normally done have been a little bit smaller. It was a lot of fun.”

Overall, more than 22,000 runners took part in either the full or half marathons. “It was pretty nice,” Sandoval said of the course. “It started right outside of downtown in Balboa Park, which is a huge park in San Diego, then you’re running through different neighborhoods in the city. That was pretty cool. You’re running by different shops and you see different parts of the city. Some of it is a little bit residential too. Then you get on the main street like where Sea World is, so that was pretty cool. As you’re coming back into the finish line, they had closed off one of the highways there and we were pretty much on the highway. But that’s where they had a huge hill. It was about a mile long. That one was pretty tough, that’s right around mile 23 or 24. That was pretty rough. There were a lot of people out there walking and having to stop and walk up the hill. It’s pretty brutal.”

In the full marathon, Sandoval was second out of 460 entrants in the men’s 25-29 age group. Alex Bowns, the ninthplace overall finisher won the age group in 2:42:01.

Kellen Blumberg of San Diego won the race in 2:28:17 while Ryo Furukawa of Los Angeles wasn’t far behind in 2:28:54 and Benjamin Freeman of New York City was third in 2:33:03.

Bonnie Axman Keating of San Diego was the women’s winner in 2:44:58, which put her 14th overall among all marathon runners.

Sandoval said his previous best time was 3:03:37, which he set last June at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, which had nearly 2,800 runners.

“I ran 3:03 at Grandma’s last year,” he said. “I was hoping to be faster than that last year. So 3:03 was a little bit of a disappointing time for me last year. It was still a good race. It was still relatively fast for somebody who’s not an elite runner. I couldn’t be too upset about that.

“Ultimately my goal was to qualify for Boston,” Sandoval added. “In my age group, that’s under three hours. That’s what I was hoping for when I ran Grandma’s last year, so I missed only by a few minutes. To come back and be that much faster this time around was great. That definitely makes me want to go out and run Boston. It’d be an awesome opportunity. That race happens in April. A little bit of a downside to that is that would mean I would have to start training in January or February which would be pretty tough to get those long runs in during the middle of winter. I know I definitely want to do it. If that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes.”

Sandoval said he really didn’t start running until a handful of years ago. He grew up as a lacrosse player, which he played at Wheaton College in Illinois. To get where he has so quickly is impressive.

“Right after I graduated from college, I was looking for something to do because I’ve played some sports my whole life.” he said. “I was looking to stay competitive and stay healthy. I started running and got faster and faster as I went on. It’s been great since then. It’s kinda cool to see where it has taken me. I never thought I’d be able to qualify for Boston at this point. It was like, ‘under three hours, that will never happen.’ Now I’m here. It’s been awesome.”