Morgan City duo to run Boston Marathon Monday

Friends Troy Verret and Pat Riggins, both of Morgan City, have run many miles together and various races in recent years.
Now, they will get the opportunity to do so on a much bigger stage as both will compete in Monday’s prestigious Boston Marathon.
The duo, who has known each other for years, both started running not terribly long ago for such a prestigious race.
Riggins, who ran cross country and participated in track in high school, said he began running again five years ago and got really serious about it about three years ago.
Verret, 52, who works in the maintenance department for the St. Mary Parish School Board, has been running four years at the encouragement of Riggins.
They both have built themselves up to where they are now.
“It’s always been a dream or goal of mine to run that,” Riggins said of the Boston Marathon. “I never thought I would ever have reached that goal.”
To even be considered for the Boston Marathon, both had to meet a certain qualifying standard to be submitted for consideration in their age groups.
Then, however, Verret said times are compared with others who have met that same threshold and runners are selected. That means, the faster a runner is, the better their chance of being selected.
For his group, ages 50-55, Verret had to run under 3 hours and 30 minutes.
He met the qualifying standard at the Zydeco Marathon in Lafayette in March 2014 when he estimated he ran around 3:27.
He followed it up this year with a qualifying time for the 2016 event with a time of about 3:26, which is his best mark ever.
“It don’t sound like much but running a minute or so (better), is a lot,” he said.
Verret and Riggins have each run four marathons in their careers.
Riggins, 55, who will be competing in the 55 to 59 age group, qualified at the Louisiana Marathon last year when he finished in 3 hours and 38 minutes. He had to run it in 3 hours and 40 minutes to qualify.
At the Zydeco Marathon in Lafayette last year, Riggins, an operations manager for an offshore support company out of Houma, ran a 3:27 along with Verret.
“Pretty much every run, we try to run together,” Riggins said. “Been doing that for about 2½ to 3 years now. It’s a friendly competition.”
He said pushing each other has made them both better runners as well as with running with younger runners who are typically faster or stronger.
As for their training regime, Verret said they run 20-plus miles on Saturdays.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, they run around 15 miles.
“You go up, then you come back down before the race,” he said.
In regards to his goal for the race, Verret said he and Riggins will run it together.
“My goal is to finish, to finish comfortably and enjoy the race,” Verret said. “I want to do it under four (hours). My normal is under 3:30.”
Riggins, who said the race is referred to by many as “like the Super Bowl of running,” said, “We trained together. We put in the miles and the hard work to get there, and we’re going to enjoy it. A lot of people go there with the idea that they’re going to better their time and that’s fine. We’re OK with that, but we just want to go out and have a good time and enjoy the experience. It’s our first one. We qualified for next year already, we know we’re going back so there’s no pressure on us to do that.”