Roughly 40 minutes after Ethiopian runner Sisay Lemma crossed the finish line and won the 128th Boston Marathon, a TCU student finished his own race.

The moment had been months in the making for senior journalism major Micah Pearce.

Getting to Boston is no easy feat: the marathon is one of six Abbott World Marathon Majors, widely considered the most prestigious marathons in the world.

Unlike other marathons, runners don’t sign up to participate in the Boston Marathon. They must qualify, either by making a charitable donation or running a complete marathon within a certain time limit.

For Pearce, the limit was three hours.

A former high school track athlete, Pearce’s marathon training began when he joined a running club at TCU.

Together with a friend from the club, Pearce ran the Cowtown Half Marathon in 2022.

In April 2023, he ran the Oklahoma City Marathon, clocking in at 2:31:09.

From there, he set his sights on Boston.

“When I hit the qualifying time pretty easily, I went ahead and signed up,” Pearce said.

Boston was Pearce’s second full marathon. He called it “the Murphy’s Law of races,” that is, anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

Eight miles into the race, Pearce began experiencing stomach pain and cramps in his legs, feet and back.

Pearce said he took advantage of almost every water station along the back half of the 26.2-mile route, which stretches from Hopkinton, Massachusetts to Boylston Street in Boston.

With temperatures rising to 75 degrees and the notoriously difficult Newton Hills in view, Pearce trekked on.

“At some point, I did just put my head down and run,” Pearce said. “I didn’t pay attention to the mile markers. I didn’t pay attention to anything.”

At that point, his priority became to enjoy the experience.

“I was just… trying to realize how special of a moment this was, in that I can’t really focus on how poorly the race is going,” Pearce said.

By the time he reached the finish line, he said he didn’t realize the race had ended until he looked up and saw people stopping behind him.

It had been two hours, 47 minutes and 42 seconds since Pearce had first started running.

“No matter what the end time was, I know how hard I worked to get there—how hard I worked throughout the race to get to the finish line,” Pearce said.