OP, there are a ton of great marathons with no pace requirements for entry. Unless you want to raise a bunch of money or train your butt off to get a crazy fast time, research some other races as your next one, since you've got the bug.

I say this because you're probably not going to hit 3:10 on your next marathon if your first one was a 4:30. More likely, if you train right, you could get close to 4 hours, or maybe slightly under. (and then you can shave off some more time before the one after that!)

Members of the NY Road Runners get a guaranteed spot if they complete a certain amount of NY Road Runners races within a year. It used to be only 6 races and most of them are short races like 3M, 4M or 10K. I used to go to NYC 3 times a year and do a Saturday-Sunday double to qualify for the NYC Marathon. A ton of people do this and you are usually finished by 10am and can spend the rest of your day as a tourist or visiting friends and family.

I see they bumped it up to 9 races this year, so it is much harder for non-NYC residents to do it.

I have run the NYC Marathon before. Every person that I know that has run it did it through NY Road Runners qualifying. NY Road Runners is organization that sponsors the NYC Marathon, but they have a ton of other events throughout the year. In the past, if you ran 6 NY Road Runners sponsored events in a year, you received a guaranteed spot in the NYC Marathon. Most of the races are 3 to 6.2 miles and they have many weekends where you can do two races. These aren't elite races, so runners of all ability have an easy way to qualify for the NYC Marathon.

I think the qualifying times for the NYC Marathon only apply to those seeking guaranteed entry. You can still register with a slower time but you won't be guaranteed a slot. I'm guessing they use a lottery for all runners who do not meet the qualifying time.

I've run Richmond, Honolulu, and Marine Corp. But never NYC. I would LOVE to run it!

The NYC marathon has four possible ways to get in:
1) You qualify by running a faster marathon than BQ standards
2) you get in through the lottery
3) you try to get into through the lottery three years in a row and DONT get in - automatic entry 4th year
4) you run for a charity and raise a ton of money.

For Boston, you either qualify or you run for a charity and raise money.

So I know a few people (not really friends--more like "friends of friends") that are going to be running the NYC marathon this weekend, so I was just looking on their website about registering for next years' race.

I see that there are qualifying times (basically if you are a woman under 40, you need to run a 3:10 marathon, etc.). Now, I know the women that are going up there this weekend probably don't run that fast--they are experienced runners and all but I've seen their times at other marathons, and they are more in the 5 hour + range.
So how did they qualify?

Same thing with Boston--I know they have qualifying times--but I've known runners whose times are more in the 4:30+ range that run...

I ran the Marine Corps marathon last weekend. It was my first, and I'm hooked! I'd love to run another marathon (hence why I was looking up the registration info for the 2014 NYC marathon) but my time at MCM was around 4:30 (don't want to give exact time and come too close to "outing" myself here!)... While I realize that gives me a year to train, I still don't think I'll ever come close to a 3:10.