To Dolores High School alumni Teegan (Hite) Schlagel and her husband, Jonathan Schlagel, running isn’t 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.
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.
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.
Now, the couple run together while balancing their careers, Jonathan as an engineer and Teegan, an elementary school teacher near the Front Range.
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.
“Running 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,” Teegan said. “It 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. … It is also exciting to choose races in places where you wouldn’t normally run, like other states, climates and with other scenery.”
Teegan and Jonathan ran their first marathon in October 2023 in Windsor.
“After experiencing the race and realizing our times weren’t 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,” Teegan said.
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.
“After 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,” Teegan said. “We 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.”
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.
Through they had both qualified, the Schlagels began training even harder to cut more time to solidify their place in Boston.
“Because 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,” Teegan said. “Based 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.”
Cutting more time wouldn’t 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.
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.
“Making these changes made a huge difference and at the race in Washington we were both able to drop another seven to 10 minutes,” Teegan said.
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.
“We 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,” Teegan said. “When 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.”
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.
“I 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,” Teegan said.
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’t over yet.
“As 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,” Teegan said. “Each 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.”
They will continue utilizing the energy gels and work on training for hills, as the Boston Marathon will include several difficult hills.
Teegan’s goal time for Boston is 3:15:00 and Jonathan’s is 2:45:00.
“With 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,” Teegan said.
