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(Above: Mike Hassett at the Richmond Marathon, with sons Timmy, left, and Danny)

Twenty-five seconds.

That’s all Mike Hassett had to spare after running for three and a half hours in Saturday’s Richmond Marathon. But Hassett, 47, crossed the line in three hours, 30 minutes and 34 seconds and qualified to run in the Boston Marathon.

Exhilaration, right? Yeah, but he almost didn’t make it.

Hassett aimed for the 3:30:59 or better that would get him to Boston, but that was 10 minutes faster than he had run in either of his two previous marathons. And he was strong at the half, then a couple of miles later after a gel packet. By mile 20, he learned he had dropped the rest of his gels. And by mile 24, he contemplated the dreaded DNF – Did Not Finish.

“I started feeling bad,” says Hassett, who lives with his wife, Mary Ann, and three sons near the Cardinal in Greensboro. “I felt kinda dizzy, just not feeling that great. If I had seen a policeman at mile 25, I might’ve stopped.”

He didn’t, holding his pace of eight minutes per mile, and he reached mile 25 with 3:20 elapsed on his watch. Only 1.2 miles to go, most of it downhill, and 10-plus minutes to get there.

“That really gave me a boost,” Hassett says. “If I could stay on my feet, I knew it would be close.”

Hassett stayed on his feet, but little else occupied his mind.

“I really just rolled down the hill,” he says. “My 12-year-old (Danny) had a big sign and I missed it. I was focusing on the road. I couldn’t move my head because I was afraid I was going to faint.”

A close finish always makes for a good story, but Hassett is a good story for another reason. He quit smoking in 2000, but he replaced that bad habit with poor eating. Lean for most of his life, Hassett packed on pounds and ultimately tipped the scales at 205 pounds (he’s 5 feet 11) -- until his middle son, Timmy, got involved with the GO FAR program. GO FAR teaches students about nutrition, character education and running, and Hassett joined Timmy in the 5K race at the end of his school’s program.

“I’ve never stopped running after that,” Hassett says.

Neither has Timmy, a sophomore on Northwest Guilford’s cross country team.

“All of us, the last five years, this is a big part of the Hassett family,” Mike Hassett says. “I owe a lot to GO FAR.”

As for Boston, ah, that’s where the feel-good part of the story ends, at least for now. Hassett got online Saturday night to sign up for the April classic, only to find the field full and registration closed. His qualifying time is good for two years.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I’ll have to run it in 2011. But I will run.”